Game: Age of Steam Expansion - Barbados / St. Lucia

Thread: Re: Barbados: An Age of Steam Scenario for One Player

TGov — 2008-11-26T04:20:03+00:00

Played this twice tonight for the first time. I am a noob AoS player, in fact I have only played solitaire, but I found this map very fun and challenging. Luck of the draw on cubes greatly affects the outcome though. I can see getting burnt out on this one, but I will get more than my monies worth out of it I find a score of $100 hard to fathom, but I am halfway there....scored a 54 on my second game

Good Review!

Thread: Playing St Lucia Solo

citylife — 2008-11-16T06:32:41+00:00

So you can't find even one other friend to play with? Try mixing the Barbados rules with St Lucia for lightening fast solo game.

Setup St Lucia as normal with a cube on each free space. Use the phases as described for Barbados. In the action phase you may choose one of three actions (not four as in Barbados), either locomotive, urbanize or engineer. The restriction here is that you cannot take any one action in successive rounds, otherwise you are free to play. As for St Lucia, play for 8 turns and like Barbados, buy back any shares you purchased for $5 each and your score is the cash at the end.

My benchmark after a couple of plays is 70. Let me know your thoughts.

Thread: Benchmarking barbados

citylife — 2008-11-14T06:06:43+00:00

Having borrowed the map from my friend I was keen to rip into it while I was at home with the sick twins. So in between feeds I got a bunch of plays and was impressed with the afternoons entertainment. I followed it up with a bunch of other plays and found it took me three plays to handle and about ten plays to complete the experience.

My scores
Loss
12
63
85
60
75
65
86
105

Well the last game was really a response to reports of people scoring 100 plus. Well i had to rig the cubes to even make 100, so I am impressed that other can do better. The key limiting factor to me is the supply of cubes. After all you only have two colours that you can deliver in turns 1-4, 3 in turns 5-8 and then the fourth colour for turns nine and ten. You then have to get those colours out onto the board which requires more luck of the roll and luck of the draw. Even by looping your railroad to maximise your opportunities you still need the cubes to go for you and the dice to allow you to bring them out. Pineapple (yellow) is particularly difficult if they come out in the midgame. I can't find an economical way to deliver them for more than 2. Yellow helps you get going which is great since you can save you other colours for bigger deliveries, but in the midgame they are killers.

Anyway on this map I think a player should be really happy with an 80 and ecstatic with a ninety. I believe a hundred requires great fortune, more fortune than i could generate in ten games anyway.

Enjoy the map.

Thread: Re: Barbados - Production

100%Blade — 2008-10-05T01:05:00+00:00

Thanks for the quick response, Ted. Sorry I'm only just getting round to looking at this now - almost one yar on!. Looking forward to the next maps.

Thread: Re: Barbados - Production

toulouse — 2008-10-05T00:53:39+00:00

100%Blade wrote:
If you choose production, can you place cubes on the second row on the goods display? Or are you limited to replacing goods that have been placed on the board already?

Yes. During setup only the top row is used. You could use the third as well if the second has a cube in it.

That means you can pick Production on the first turn, and be able to place goods directly on the chart.

Thread: Barbados - Production

100%Blade — 2008-10-05T00:07:56+00:00

If you choose production, can you place cubes on the second row on the goods display? Or are you limited to replacing goods that have been placed on the board already?

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duartec — 2008-09-21T11:17:27+00:00

Near the end

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

TMJJS — 2008-08-28T20:55:45+00:00

TMJJS wrote:
toulouse wrote:
If you own a partial link that is directly connected to a city, and you deliver a cube from that partial link to that city, you get 1 income.

In AoS you only ever get income from delivery over a link, and this is true here (the goods travel over one link in this case, even though the link is not complete).

Ted

Now if that track tile is my own, then per the rules for this map, I would go up 2 on the income track, correct?

Same question if I have a partial track built, then deliver a cube back through the city (1), through a complete link to city 2 (2) and then into the colored city I need over another link (3). I would obviously need a 3 link train, but would go up 4 on the income track (3 for the links & 1 for the special rule of starting the cube on a tile I own)?

I just got a geekmail explaining this is not correct. The bonus is basically to give you the income for the partial link.

Sorry for dragging this on longer than needed since Ted answered above clearly.

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

TMJJS — 2008-08-28T20:43:27+00:00

toulouse wrote:
If you own a partial link that is directly connected to a city, and you deliver a cube from that partial link to that city, you get 1 income.

In AoS you only ever get income from delivery over a link, and this is true here (the goods travel over one link in this case, even though the link is not complete).

Ted

Now if that track tile is my own, then per the rules for this map, I would go up 2 on the income track, correct?

Same question if I have a partial track built, then deliver a cube back through the city (1), through a complete link to city 2 (2) and then into the colored city I need over another link (3). I would obviously need a 3 link train, but would go up 4 on the income track (3 for the links & 1 for the special rule of starting the cube on a tile I own)?

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

woodnoggin — 2008-08-28T15:18:35+00:00

OK. So this rule effectively says "count the partial link as a full link for the player who owns the track with the cube on it".

Thanks!

Thread: Re: First turn blocking on St. Lucia

woodnoggin — 2008-08-28T15:14:36+00:00

Good points. I hadn't really considered the implications for turns beyond the first. It sounds like this "strategy" is possible, but not often desirable.

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

toulouse — 2008-08-28T15:09:43+00:00

If you own a partial link that is directly connected to a city, and you deliver a cube from that partial link to that city, you get 1 income.

In AoS you only ever get income from delivery over a link, and this is true here (the goods travel over one link in this case, even though the link is not complete).

Ted

Thread: Re: First turn blocking on St. Lucia

toulouse — 2008-08-28T14:36:17+00:00

That is certainly a possible strategy. The player would have to continue those tracks each turn to maintain ownership, and the opposing player would either take urb the next turn or be able to build from the new city or extend track from the existing city. It's really only a super nasty strategy for a single turn.

Certain cube distributions might make this a valid strategy for a turn or two. I haven't seen that happen, but I certainly would look for the opportunity!

Thread: Re: First turn blocking on St. Lucia

rockusultimus — 2008-08-28T14:34:57+00:00

I don't see why this would not be allowed. The worst thing is that he won't have any track to build for a turn (or goods to move for the 1st turn though this is common).

It will probably hurt you as much if not more. You'll have three stubs you'll have to extend later and probably won't have $5 to spare on turn 2 to keep 1st place so likely, the other guy will just urbanize on turn 2. Probably not a good strategy.

Thread: First turn blocking on St. Lucia

woodnoggin — 2008-08-28T11:55:49+00:00

Since a player's first track placement must be adjacent to a city and the map features no cities, if you want to build track in the first turn, you must pick the Urbanisation action. Is this correct?

If the starting player urbanises one of the towns which are adjacent to only three hexes, are they then permitted to build three pieces of track out of that new city, one in each adjacent hex? If so, this would mean the player going second can make no legal placement of track and would be unable to build. The start player could continue extending these three as long as he is able to prevent the opponent from building.

That sounds harsh, even for Age of Steam, so I've probably made a mistake somewhere. Perhaps I've missed a key rule forbidding this, but a brief scan of the rulebook didn't throw any light on the matter. Is there a rule about having no more than one incomplete link per player, or something like that?

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

woodnoggin — 2008-08-28T11:47:41+00:00

We just tried out this board yesterday and I have the same question as Todd above. Does the delivery of a cube part of the way along a link count as 1 link for income and locomotive purposes? We weren't sure whether the 1 additional income for the owner of the track the cube sits on was supposed to be some sort of compensation for the partial link, or a bonus on top of the usual. We played using the latter interpretation, but I think it might not be correct, since money wasn't particularly tight for us.

Can anyone confirm how this should be played?

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

TMJJS — 2008-08-20T14:51:11+00:00

texasjdl wrote:
Lucas wrote:
The part that gets me is the "additional." Not completely clear on this one. Ted?
"Additional" refers to the incomplete link on which the cube sits. Even though it's not a full link (city-to-city, town-to-city, etc), you still get one income from that link when shipping the cube.

Am I playing wrong then?
If a cube is sitting on my track and I deliver it to the city the track is connected to, do I get 1 or 2 on the income track? 1 = no link to deliver, so just 1 for the "additional" for owning the track 2 = 1 point delivery for going to the city and 1 point additional for owning the track.

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fehrmeister — 2008-06-05T06:08:46+00:00

My First Play of Barbados

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fehrmeister — 2008-05-24T17:13:41+00:00

Cover of the Envelope the Map Comes In

Thread: Barbados: An Age of Steam Scenario for One Player

da pyrate — 2008-05-14T01:31:26+00:00

Age of Steam – Barbados

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One-player Scenario for Age of Steam
Designed by Ted Alspach
Published by Bezier Games (2007)

This is a review of the Barbados game and not of Age of Steam. It assumes that those reading the review are familiar with the Age of Steam game. For those unfamiliar with it, you might like to look at Tom Vasel’s excellent review of the game: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/30362.

Game Components

The game is simply two pieces of thin, Legal-size board, back-printed. The Barbados map is on one side of the board and the St. Lucia map is on the other side. Both games have the rules printed around the edge of the map.

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The maps are colourful and well printed but the board is quite thin. As Barbados is for one player and the other game is for two players this is not really a problem. If it is a concern, placing the map under Perspex should fix the problem.

Barbados has six cities and all are yellow. There are five towns on the map. The centre of the island is mountainous.

The Rules of the Game

The changes to the standard Age of Steam rules are quite minimal and very easy to assimilate.

Only New Cities A, B, C and D are used in the game. Purple cubes are not used in the game at all. The game starts with only one goods cube in each city and only the top row of white cities 1-6 and the top row of white cities A-D have new goods placed in them.

Only one new share may be issued each turn.

The only actions that may be chosen are Locomotive, Engineering, Urbanize and Production. Each action may only be chosen once, until all four actions have been chosen, and then all four actions are again available.

During Goods Growth only two dice are rolled.

At the end of the 10th turn you use your available cash to purchase back issued shares at $5 each. Your cash remaining is your score.

Playing The Game

The game takes around the 40 minute mark to play. It feels fast and is quite interesting. I have played it only three times and feel I need to rethink my strategy.

Because the six initial cities are all yellow, it is necessary to loop through towns to increase the length of the routes and consequently increase your income.

Urbanize is very important as it is only through this mechanism that you will be allowed to deliver non-yellow goods.

Production is quite important as with only a single good on each city and a single good on each line of the Goods Growth table goods will run out fairly quickly.

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Locomotive is quite important as you really need to make some long deliveries to increase your income.

Because you cannot repeat a special action until you have enacted each action once there will be, at most, three Urbanize actions and three Production actions throughout the game.

Some Final Thoughts, Man!

The game is interesting and provides plenty of challenge. I suspect that it is unlikely that anyone would score zero or less, but the challenge is to try to get as high a score as possible. I have been told that it is possible to finish with a score of $100+, but have got nowhere near that myself in my three playings of the game.

I suspect that the random placement of goods on both the cities and the production track will have a significant bearing on the outcome of each game but will also make each game a brand-new experience where you have to have a close look at the map to decide what plan is going to work best each time.

The game is quick and easy to set up. It is fast and interesting to play. Each game is a brand new challenge. I suspect that it may become quite addictive to try to increase your ‘high score’ from game to game.

I quite expect to be playing this particular game for quite some time into the future.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales!”

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saminurmela — 2008-05-04T16:07:35+00:00

Barbados game end, score 36

Thread: Re: Turn Order in St Lucia

Noburo — 2008-04-17T13:40:14+00:00

rockusultimus wrote:
The normal Turn Order Action doesn't apply (since there is no auction for turn order), but if you choose the Turn Order Action, it allows you to pay to go first before the other player.
I played St. Lucia a while ago with my wife, and this is the way we interpreted the action, too. Not that it mattered, we were both so strapped for cash throughout the whole game that the situation never arose...

Thread: Re: Turn Order in St Lucia

rockusultimus — 2008-04-16T15:09:59+00:00

I believe the missing word is NORMAL and should be in the 1st sentence in question.

The normal Turn Order Action doesn't apply (since there is no auction for turn order), but if you choose the Turn Order Action, it allows you to pay to go first before the other player.

IMO

Thread: Turn Order in St Lucia

cparrott — 2008-04-16T14:11:03+00:00

I have a question about the wording in the pdf version of the rules here on BGG. The last two sentences under the Turn Order heading are in conflict. The first sentence is 'The Turn Order action is not available.' The second is 'Choosing the Turn Order action allows that player to pay before the other player next turn.'

Any idea which sentence needs to be removed? Or is there some wording missing from the first that qualifies it so that Turn Order is available under specific circumstances?

Thread: Re: Barbados Strategy Tips?

cparrott — 2008-03-12T19:14:15+00:00

I've played it twice and ended up with $83 and $87 after buying back my shares. Both times I tried running on a shoestring budget, keeping my shares low and looking to be profitable ASAP. One thing to keep in mind is that the share buy back is a losing propistion. You will lose 1 victory point per turn for each share you take. You start with 2 shares so you are 20 pts in the hole before the game even starts. Try and setup a 2 link route by urbanizing Brighton on turn 1. You can do this for $4 total (sometimes $6 with a certain cube arrangement) no matter what cubes come out at the start. After turn 1 look for your next 2 or 3 link shipment. Don't spend for un-needed track on the first couple of turns. Also remember that unfinished links can exist, there is no one else to take them from you. Don't borrow to finish a link, especially if you have other cubes you can ship. Don't build through a town if you plan to urbanize it later. It's money ie points spent for nothing. Focus on getting your income in the black and try and stay at 2 or 3 shares. When you need to take a share try and do it later rather than sooner. Each turn you delay is 1 more VP.

Taking the math further, you have only 3 urbanize actions. Placing those cities and WHEN is crucial. Likewise with only 3 locomotive actions, you will have only 18 deliveries total to take your engine to a 6. So upgrade early and plan your routes around getting 5 and 6 link deliveries. And be sure to loop in the southeast portion early as well as planning to loop the island later. Goods in city 1 can usually be setup for 6 linkers if you plan you routes well.

After more plays, I feel that the southeast exclusively is the place to be unless you just get very unlucky with your cube pulls. I've played several games and have broken 100 a few times and almost never connect to city 1 in the north. I focus on getting the first city in Brighton as a hub to bring the early shipments in as well as create 2 link deliveries for yellow cubes. After that, I plan the second city with an eye to getting 5 and 6 link deliveries of those cubes to it. The yellow cities act as delivery length points once you get a 'spider web' network built in the south. Only once did I get stymied with a drought of cubes because of several rolls of 1 stacking those up in the north.

Edited for a couple of math errors and added the south strategy section.

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Garry — 2008-02-28T12:46:22+00:00

End of the game, score 16

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rockusultimus — 2008-01-30T05:42:20+00:00

Tie game. BLACK: 19x3+25track=82VP RED: 21x3+19track=82VP

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rockusultimus — 2008-01-30T05:38:49+00:00

Arriving on the island of St. Lucia...

Thread: Age of Steam Barbados session report

dedefortin — 2007-12-30T05:40:08+00:00

As the Puerto Rico expansion I was very curious to try this solo map. The set up of goods and display of the cities on this map made it look very tough as we like them in our group. Reading of the rules was easy and everything seemed to work well.

The setup of good was quite different with what we're used to see as there are only yellow cities on the map at first. I began the turn 1 with a blue urbanization on Brighton and I was able to connect Bell Point and Crane Beach for a very low cost. My strategy was to keep a very low share game as the game would be very tough at the start. On the next turns I would try to make a loop in the east and then take goods from the west coast and make some nice deliveries to the east. The production action was really usefull since there isn't much goods available at the start of the game. During all game long I try to avoid building in the costly mountains in the center of the map. I later urbanized Holetown to take many red goods from the east and from that point my network was really profitable. I was able to make 5 and 6 income deliveries for the last 3 or 4 last turns of the game.

The Barbados map wasn't as interesting as the Puerto Rico map but I still had a good time. Goods growth make this map more random and the geography of the map makes the southeastern very powerful since you can loop very easily so the replayability will not be as good as the Puerto Rico map. Again there is very good ideas on this map with very simple rules that work well. Again the only downside is the poor quality of the map that needs to be laminated.

Final score: 100$= 100 points

Thread: Age of Steam St-Lucia session report

dedefortin — 2007-12-28T05:13:43+00:00

Long time since the last session report but we still play as often at Age of Steam with so many new expansions that were published in 2007. We're glad to see that this game is so popular with many fan made expansion. Tonight Martin and I played the St-Lucia expansion that we just received this week. Two players game between us are usually very close. Since John Bohrer published his famous rules for the 2 players map with the Austria map we enjoyed this game even more.

The rules for the St-Lucia maps are very simple as we like with the main changes being that there is no city at the start of the game and that there is one good on each hex of the map. So the urbanization action seemed the most important action and this was what happened. We made one tweak to the turn order rule of this map as we played with the turn order rules of the Austria map. For us the adding of the 5$ cost for the player playing first wasn't necessary, this additional cost didin't add anything. The 2 players game are already very challenging

Martin began with initiative on turn and this was no surprise when he choose the urbanization action. Pierre took the enginner action as he was afraid of the new city that Martin could have hidden in a spot where Pierre wouldn't have been able to deliver anything. So Laborie was the town choosen bt Martin for urbanization and he than build to the northwest toward Fond St-Jacques. Pierre had no choice to connect Laborie in order to ship for at least 1 income as he began to build toward Micoud. As expexted Pierre took the urbanization action and Dennery received the purple New City, since it was very far from Martin Pierre tought it would be tough for Martin to cross the expensive mountains to connect this city. On this turn Martin took the loco action and made some nice delivery to Laborie to take the lead. On turn 3 Martin again took the urbanization action on Anse Chastenet. Pierre continued his expansion on the eastern side of the island but began to build in Martin's network to gain access to new cities. The urbanization was again choosen by Pierre and he put the yellow city on Fond St-Jacques right in the middle of Martin's network. This seemed good for Martin but Pierre took many exits and Martin had to take first build in the next turn to be able to make a nice loop in the southwest. On the next turns Pierre builded in the north of the map and was able to make many nice deliveries of yellow goods. Martin arrived later in this region and he tried to connect Dennery but Pierre denied him access to this city. By the of the game we both had to work hard to find some interesting deliveries. Pierre finally won the game by a slight margin.

I appreciated this map since the interaction was good. It's obvious that the urbanization action is critical and will be choosen pratically every turn. Replayability seems good and we'll have to try it again soo.

Thread: Re: Barbados Strategy Tips?

HuckmanT — 2007-12-17T03:43:34+00:00

Sultan of Steam (great name!)-

Keep us posted as you keep trying, I'd love to follow your progress through the solo game experience.

Thread: Re: Barbados Strategy Tips?

rockusultimus — 2007-12-17T02:12:17+00:00

100 points? 72 points? Hmmmm....

I've only played once and ended with 6 points, ie. $6 after buying back my shares.

Rules wrote:
End Game and Scoring
After 10 turns (when the turn marker reaches the 3 player end
space), use the cash you have to buy back all of your shares at $5
each. If you can’t buy back your shares, you lose! Any money you
have left over is your score.

So this means I didn't bother building extra links that I didn't need that would normally get me points in regular AoS. I tried to save my money as best I could - which was difficult.

Thread: Barbados Strategy Tips?

HuckmanT — 2007-12-16T18:10:22+00:00

Hey fellas-

Reading in the personal comments, I see that some of you are scoring upwards of 100 points on the Barbados solo map. I have played 6 times, with my best score at 72 points.

I'm looking for some early game tips to help me give my score the extra boost that it needs. I think that, in general, my production rolls have been bad (in fact, I rolled doubles 9 times in one game! Urp), but I bet that's how everyone feels with this one.

I am specifically looking for track-building and role-selection tips, but I'll take anything. I really want to break 100 points!

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jcarvin — 2007-12-13T04:48:31+00:00

My second game of Barbados. Final score, 9 points

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SkiBoy — 2007-11-21T15:41:56+00:00

Red wins 115 to 100 points!!

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

toulouse — 2007-11-13T16:33:25+00:00

Just to confirm, Jeremiah is exactly right on this. And he would know, having crushed me on that particular map several times.

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

texasjdl — 2007-10-30T07:19:32+00:00

d0gb0t wrote:
The rules says that a disc on an unfinished track is removed if the track is not extended during the next turn. So it can happen that cubes exists on unowned tracks. Or will the disc-removing-rule be ignored?

If the track is not extended on the next turn and does not connect to a city or town, the normal removal of the track marker occurs. It is still possible for either player to ship cubes that remain on the tracks, with the one income for that (incomplete) link going to waste (ie, no one collects income but that link still counts for link-counting purposes).

If the track is later extended, the player extending the track claims the previously unfinished track as per the normal rules.

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

d0gb0t — 2007-10-29T20:26:28+00:00

Me again,
texasjdl wrote:
Lucas wrote:
The part that gets me is the "additional." Not completely clear on this one. Ted?
"Additional" refers to the incomplete link on which the cube sits. Even though it's not a full link (city-to-city, town-to-city, etc), you still get one income from that link when shipping the cube.

The rules says that a disc on an unfinished track is removed if the track is not extended during the next turn. So it can happen that cubes exists on unowned tracks. Or will the disc-removing-rule be ignored?

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

texasjdl — 2007-10-29T15:36:36+00:00

Lucas wrote:
The part that gets me is the "additional." Not completely clear on this one. Ted?
"Additional" refers to the incomplete link on which the cube sits. Even though it's not a full link (city-to-city, town-to-city, etc), you still get one income from that link when shipping the cube.

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

boomtron — 2007-10-29T14:13:20+00:00

The part that gets me is the "additional." Not completely clear on this one. Ted?

Thread: Re: Please explain the rules?!

Verkisto — 2007-10-28T21:39:16+00:00

When building track, whatever cube was already on that hex remains on that hex. Now, it's located on track, instead of on an empty cube.

It's now deliverable by anyone, as per standard Age of Steam rules, but whoever owns the track beneath the cube received income from delivering that good. The tracks beneath the cube is treated as a link for that player.

Note that I haven't played the map yet. I've read the rules, though, and this is my interpretation of them.

Thread: Please explain the rules?!

d0gb0t — 2007-10-28T21:23:23+00:00

Hi all,

we try to play this little sweet map today for the first time but there are some obscurities about the rules, especially the part about building tracks and delivering cubes. The rules:

Building track and Delivering Cubes
As track is built, place the cube for that hex on top of the track that was just built. That cube may now be delivered (even if the link where the cube is is not completed). The owner of the track the cube rests on receives 1 additional income from the section of track where the cube was found. If the cube rests on a crossing or double track piece, the player whose track is used (determined by the deliverer) receives the income for that section of track.

Espacially this part is not clear:

Building track and Delivering Cubes
The owner of the track the cube rests on receives 1 additional income from the section of track where the cube was found.

Can anybody explain it a little bit?

Many thanks
der ingo

Thread: Re: What do I need besides the expansion..?

toulouse — 2007-10-13T18:16:12+00:00

aladdinsdad wrote:
I don't own AoS..can I stil play the game, eg with spare cubes or whatever?? Or do I need the tiles n stuff?

The solitaire game sounds like fun for those mid-week cravings!

Simon

You will need the Age of Steam base game. Currently it is out of print, but you can find them on eBay and in the BGG marketplace for prices that aren't too outrageous.

Thread: What do I need besides the expansion..?

aladdinsdad — 2007-10-13T10:47:48+00:00

I don't own AoS..can I stil play the game, eg with spare cubes or whatever?? Or do I need the tiles n stuff?

The solitaire game sounds like fun for those mid-week cravings!

Simon

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xnardnkita — 2007-08-09T05:31:19+00:00

I'm going to need a Blue city soon!