Game: Age of Steam Expansion - War in Iraq & New York Subway

Thread: Re: IRAK: black New cities

nabla — 2008-10-14T12:42:11+00:00

Yes they are

Thread: IRAK: black New cities

marioaguila — 2008-10-13T22:55:43+00:00

Are they available to build?

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absent handed — 2008-06-29T03:02:06+00:00

The tightly rolled map and rules, out of the box. I couldn't get the map to completely unroll, so it looks like I'll be playing this with plexiglass over the top of it.

Thread: Re: War in Iraq Review After One Play

nabla — 2008-04-23T07:31:16+00:00

Thanks for these comments
Did you play with the veteran rules ?
This map is suitable with 3-4 players, but you can test it with a fifth player. NYC Subway would be a better choice if you are 5 or 6.
Notice, that it could add tension between players, if you urbanize a town in black near oilfields to block long deliveries to off map destinations

Thread: Re: Waqr in Iraq Review After One Play

trawlerman — 2008-04-21T00:11:07+00:00

Great review Jeff.

I just played this map for the first (and only so far) time last week and I had a different experience. There were four players at the table. Two of the players were completing head-to-head over the oil fields and delivery to the U.S. The other two of us were mostly cut out from this, so we focused on the West and North. I got cut out from the North and EU, so I decided to urbanize a few times, build a lot of track, increase my engine, and focus on delivering goods to Baghdad. I thought that I was severely handicapped by not getting in on all of the oil action, but I ended up winning with a decent lead. The map is very interesting and provides a lot of tension. I'd definitely recommend the map and I'd love to try it myself many more times.

Thread: War in Iraq Review After One Play

jcurtis55 — 2008-04-20T16:39:03+00:00

I have not played the New York map, so this review is strictly for the Iraq map. I've played it once with three players. War in Iraq was designed by Alban Viard, who has now done 4 maps for Age of Steam. All look interesting, but Iraq is the first I've gotten to the table.

As with any Age of Steam expansion, each map comes with it's own special rules. Here is a synopsis of the special rules for War in Iraq:

Bagdad - Bagdad can receive red, yellow and blue goods.

Convoy action - This is a new action available to players. Taking the convoy action allows a player to ship a good through a city that normally consumes that good. However, the good must be delivered in the 2nd city you reach that consumes that good. To give an example, with the convoy action you can ship a red good through a red city with the final delivery being made to a 2nd red city. Needless to say, this can lengthen your shipments and is handy in getting goods past Bagdad.

Oilfields - The east side of the map has three cities that are oilfields. They start the game with somewhere between 1-6 black cubes, determined by random dice rolls. The oilfield cities do not consume any goods. Track can only be connected to an oilfield by a player with the engineer action.

US and Europe destinations - There are two off-map destinations that can consume oil goods. They are in opposite corners of the map. There are two possible links to the US and only one to Europe. The link cost $5 to build. Oil can be delivered to the US, Europe or other black cities created through urbanization. There is a key difference though. Any black cubes delivered to the US or Europe are retained by the player and are added to the player's income track again during end-game scoring.

Production - The player with the production action gets to do two acts. First, if there are any black cubes in the goods pool, the player can select a single black cube and place it in the oilfield of his or her choice. Next the player randomly draws 4 cubes from the goods pool, selects one and places it on the good chart in the place of his or her choosing.

Engineer - This works are normal with the exception you must have the engineer action to connect track to an oilfield.

Map - In addition to the three oilfields, there is one purple city, two red, two yellow and three blue cities. As mentioned earlier, there are off-map links to the US and Europe. There is little in the way of terrain features. There are no mountains or rivers. All is desert and the cost of building on these hexes is $3 instead of the normal $2.

So how does it play? I felt the game played quite well and the theme with the tie to oil and deliveries of oil to the rest of the world seemed spot on. The increase from $2 to $3 to build track makes money even tighter than normal early in the game. There are a large number of towns on the map, so urbanization is also a popular choice of actions, often selected prior to the ever popular locomotive.

The oilfields add an interesting dynamic to the game. It takes a bit of planning to set your connections, and since two of the three oilfields are some distance from the US and Europe links, delivery of the black cubes tends to emerge around the middle of the game. Of course, using urbanization to black a grey city on the map can provide a ready destination for the black cubes, most players are hesitant to do so as long as they have some hope of linking to one of the off-map destinations. Of course, should you be shut out from getting control of one of the off-map links, then it would certainly be to your benefit to ship as many black cubes as possible to keep them away from the players who do have links to the US and Europe.

Having only played with three players, it is my feeling this map would play well with 3-4 players, but would be very tight with more than 4. I would be interested in seeing session reports if people have tried it with 5 or 6. With three players, there were only one or two possible places where track could have been laid by the last turn of the game. With only three there were opportunities for players to set up those long looping routes that lead to the 5 and 6 shipments in the latter rounds. With 4 or more players play will certainly be more contentious, but that can be said for just about any Age of Steam map. Convoy comes into play later in the game. With three blue cities along the western edge of the map, even with the convoy action, getting profitable shipments for blue cubes can be challenging. Convoy can be a nice way to mitigate an opponent who uses urbanization to drop a city in the middle of your network that might otherwise disrupt a nice route you have constructed to ship goods of a certain color.

I suppose the holy grail of the game would be to establish a 6-stop route that allows you to deliver oil to either the US or Europe. In our one play, my route from the oilfields to Europ was only 4 long, which ultimately cost me dearly on the income track. It should be noted that Europe is a dead-end destination. However, the two links to the US would actually allow goods to move through the US and back to Iraq as part of a large route. although this did not actually happen in our one play.

This is another good map to add to the Age of Steam library. The oilfields and convoy provide additional strategic options to the game. I definitely looking forward to trying this map again.

Thread: Age of Steam Iraq session report

dedefortin — 2008-04-04T03:13:58+00:00

We play Age of Steam often and there is still some maps we haven't tried yet like the Iraq maps. We really appreciated the first AoS expansion from Alban Viard with his moon's map with ht enew ideas he implemented. The Iraq map seemed more simple but we had a tough time reading the rules since there was some differences between the french and english rules but we were finally able to begin the game with 4 players.

Martin looked like he found something very intersting since he began the first bet at 5$. The other players steped down and Martin choose the urbanization action as he wanted to connect 3 important cities in the middle of the map (As Samlwah). This seems a very powerful area. Mario and Pierre began their build in the southeast region near the USA shipping area and Nathalie went alone in the north. Pierre was able to ship the important black goods on turn 1 to the USA. Nathalie bet high on turn 2 for the first build and Martin again was able to choose the important urbanization action. The production phase was awful as many players were already struggling. Nathalie again won the initiative on the next turn and she choose the locomotive action as she was the only players to have many nice deliveries. Pierre shipped for less income than her but he was able to pick black goods that would give him some bonus in the end. Pierre then choose more share to be able to win the loco action and ship 2 black goods for 4 income each on turn 4 but Nathalie still had the lead and made 5$ profit at the end of this turn. On the next turns there was many fightings in the south between Mario, Martin and Pierre. Mario and Pierre were cornered in a small area but Pierre was still able to ship black goods and choose the US Army action. Again the production phase was really poor to add to the difficulty of this map. In the end the US Army action was really important since there wasn't many interesting goods to ship. Pierre and Mario were the first to obtain their loco at level and they stole may black goods from other players even if they had to give 1 income to other players. Pierre finished a small loop in the south to give him some nice shippings to complete the game.

Pierre finally won the game. Race was close for first place but the difference was due to the bonus black goods. We really had a good time on this map with the simple rules but great interaction between players. The new rules concerning the black cubes and the US Army action were adapted to this map.

Final scoring:
Pierre: 98
Nathalie: 89
Martin: 70
Mario: 65

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Verkisto — 2008-01-21T00:17:06+00:00

A towering skyscraper mottles the skyline....

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d0gb0t — 2007-12-16T11:13:54+00:00

the game box (front side)

Thread: Re: New York Subway – Engineer action

100%Blade — 2007-11-22T14:04:39+00:00

nabla wrote:
I will be glad to have your comments about this strange map, Michael
Alban, I posted a review - it should show up soon. Thanks for the map and nice to meet you (briefly) at Essen

Thread: New York Subway Review

100%Blade — 2007-11-22T14:03:09+00:00

The New York Subway map for Age of Steam is the most radical we have played to date. Key changes are

• No rail track is laid on the board. Instead the tiles are placed blank side up to indicate that area has been ‘dug up’ and essentially contains underground lines. Digging up an area always costs $2. You can only dig 2 areas per turn

• The cities on the board represent buildings (skyscrapers)

• The cubes are not used as resources as in all other maps. Instead they are placed on hex sides between dug out subways and skyscrapers to indicate that a player has a subway station at that point. The number of subways that can be placed along a hex side is dependant on the number of players (n-2) although only 1 player can build on each hex side.

• Building a subway station costs a base $1 plus $1 given to every other player who already has a subway on that hexside. Only 3 subways can be built per turn and you are limited by a total number equal to 2 cubes per total number of game turns (e.g. 14 in a 5 player game)

• The discs that in other maps are used to indicate ownership of towns are not player-oriented, Instead 3 are placed on each skyscraper at the start of the game and these are the resources (people) that are moved between cities to increase income. Thus a red disc can be moved to a red skyscraper (city)

• To move people they enter the subway through a station bordering the skyscraper and can re-appear at any other skyscraper where a player has another subway station. A person must leave that skyscraper via a different subway connected to the skyscraper but within this restriction they can visit as many buildings as their ‘locomotive’ allows until they end up at a skyscraper of the same colour as the disk

• Only the top disc on a skyscraper may be moved and when it reaches it’s destination it is placed underneath all other discs on that hex rather than moved from the game. Thus a fairly large stack of discs may end up on some spaces thereby giving the appearance of the skyscraper

• The production display is not used and no additional goods (people) enter the game.

• The Engineer action allows players to move one of their subways from one location to another the cost of this is the same as building a new subway.

• The Production action is replaced by a ‘swap’ action which allows a player to re-order the stack of discs on a skyscraper in any way they choose.

• At game end, each skyscraper is worth points equal to the number of discs on that skyscraper for every subway a player has adjoining that skyscraper. This can be considerable if, for example, a player has 3 subways into a building that has 7 or 8 people on it. This replaces the points you would normally receive for track and is in fact be much more significant.

The blank (black) hexes on the board and the effective switching of player discs to represent resources and resource cubes to indicate ownership of lines makes the look and feel of the game very different to normal AoS and takes quite a while to get your head round. However, a lot of the core mechanisms such as share issue, bidding for actions, urbanisation, establishing routes and moving goods are all still there and as per other maps it is really down to adapting to the changes in rules which admittedly in this case are a bit more significant.

Before playing, my thoughts on strategy were based on two assumptions. The first was that money would be much more plentiful as during the build phase it is only possible to spend a maximum of $7 and this was likely to reduce as the game went on because the need to dig out new areas would reduce and you d not have enough cubes to build three subways every turn. This assumption turned out to be true and the total number of shares issues was drastically reduced and cash was plentiful by the final turn. My second assumption was that engine size was not as important. With hindsight, I’m not sure why I thought this but whatever the reason it was way off the mark. Engine size is perhaps more important in this than any other map I’ve played. The reason for this is because digging out areas potentially gives you the ability to link any two skyscrapers on the map which means that there are always plenty of goods/people available to ship and it is relatively easy to do so for your maximum engine size. Therefore the person with the biggest engine has an evne bigger adantage than normal. This disappoints me a little bit because I think the maps I most looking forward to playing are those where choosing locomotive is not the key action.

A significant proportion of your total score at the end is going to come from skyscrapers and occasionally you get the dilemma of wanting to ship a good off a skyscraper knowing that it wll reduce the value of that skyscraper at the end. Jostling for access to the biggest skyscrapers at the end is also prominent and if possible it probably makes sense to try and hold one or two cubes back for the final turn to facilitate this. Certainly the ability to score double figures in this way on the final turn is a potential game winner.

I like all things AOS and this is no exception. There are some very good ideas in here but I’m put off by nominating it as one of my favourites because of the ease of being able to ship goods and the fact that money is too plentiful. I prefer the ‘tighter’ maps.

Thread: Re: New York Subway – Engineer action

nabla — 2007-11-16T19:02:28+00:00

I will be glad to have your comments about this strange map, Michael

Thread: Re: New York Subway – Engineer action

100%Blade — 2007-11-15T21:30:15+00:00

Thanks Alban

Thread: Re: New York Subway – Engineer action

nabla — 2007-11-15T12:38:08+00:00

You have to pay the cost as you would

Thread: New York Subway – Engineer action

100%Blade — 2007-11-14T09:50:30+00:00

When you move your station as a result of the Engineer action, do you still have to pay the cost as you would during the Build phase or is it free?

Thread: Best With

nabla — 2007-10-23T06:40:22+00:00

I advise you to play Iraq with 3 or 4 players and NYC subway with 5 and 6 players.

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Malachi — 2007-10-23T03:32:58+00:00

End of a 3 player game, blue won

Thread: Re: Brian Barling

friedricetheman — 2007-08-03T17:41:03+00:00

Nice... I'm definitely getting one.

Thread: Re: Essen preview special pre order

nabla — 2007-07-28T16:15:00+00:00

Good idea John.
The Winsome stand will become the only place in the fair where nifty expansions will be sold. Lucky customers will have a chance to also buy my remaining Moon/Mars expansion.
Just ask for them in the preordered message

Thread: Re: Essen preview special pre order

John Bohrer — 2007-07-28T11:45:10+00:00

nabla wrote:
My next expansion War in Iraq/NYC Subway will be available in the ESSEN fair in october 18th.
The sets will be packaged in a on original triangular tube with cartoons of Brian Barling who everybody knows on the BGG...
If you want to get this expansion, just send an email at ageofsteam07@yahoo.fr, and pick it up on the Winsome booth on thursday 18th between 10am to 12am.

AoS: NYC/Iraq is are nifty expansions, Alban. If you have any AoS: Moon/Mars expansions left, please bring them along to the Winsome stand on Thursday morning, OK? All the Winsome Games Essen 2007 sets will be gone by noon on Thursday, I want the customers to have a chance to also buy any remaining Moon/Mars expansions.

One stop shopping!

John
Pittsburgh

Thread: Re: Essen preview special pre order

sisteray — 2007-07-19T06:50:36+00:00

I'll be at Essen, but the two hour window on Thursday is rough.

Thread: Brian Barling

nabla — 2007-07-16T23:26:28+00:00

As i made a new politically incorrect map, i tought it was great to ask Brian to illustrate the packaging of the sets.
He is so kind, and he immediatly said yes to draw two cartoons.
He sent me an extra cartoon to show us how he feels this expansion, that is this one i uploaded in preview..

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Aldie — 2007-07-16T21:40:21+00:00

Cartoon created to present the expansion

Thread: Re: Essen preview special pre order

vandemonium — 2007-07-16T20:24:05+00:00

I don't suppose there is any other way to get these maps is there? I can't get to Essen. Could you ship it to an address in Germany? My wife's uncle lives in Hanover.

Thread: Essen preview special pre order

nabla — 2007-07-16T18:48:21+00:00

My next expansion War in Iraq/NYC Subway will be available in the ESSEN fair in october 18th.
The sets will be packaged in a on original triangular tube with cartoons of Brian Barling who everybody knows on the BGG...
If you want to get this expansion, just send an email at ageofsteam07@yahoo.fr, and pick it up on the Winsome booth on thursday 18th between 10am to 12am.

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nabla — 2007-07-16T16:10:01+00:00

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nabla — 2007-07-16T16:09:38+00:00

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nabla — 2007-07-16T16:09:15+00:00

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nabla — 2007-07-16T16:08:49+00:00

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nabla — 2007-07-16T16:08:27+00:00