Mikko Saari
Finland
http://www.lautapeliopas.fi/ - the best Finnish board game resource!
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Olli and I played another game of 1825 Unit 3. Even though it was a while since our previous game, we got the game up and running in just 10 minutes. That was pretty sweet.
On company selection
I got the large private, Olli started NBR and I took Caledonian. Caledonian headed towards Carlisle, while NBR took the usual northern route. As usual, NBR withheld a lot, while Carlisle paid good dividends.
Next Olli started Highland in the north, while I started GSWR. CR and GSWR work really well together, as I saw in our first game, so this was an obvious move for me. HR and NBR have some synergy, too.
Caledonian was somewhat hampered by Olli's token play, he closed the city in front of Glasgow, so CR was limited to two-city runs between that city and Glasgow. Nasty. He did another foul trick to GSWR later on, I should've put more effort into playing offensive tokens myself.
More minors
Well, my companies paid better dividends and soon I had a lot more certificates. The game looked pretty clear, but we decided to slug it through. We started more minors. Olli started Great North of Scotland, again at low par, while I started M & C at £100.
That has been something I've wanted to do, and it was a good move. First, it got me more profit. Olli raised GNS from 550 to 1120, while I got M & C from 1000 to 1800. Second, after I paid £370 for the 3T train, M & C had enough money to buy a 5 train (sold to GSWR for £10) and pay something like £200 to CR for a 2 train. M & C bought another junk train later on so I could make space to get a 7 train for GSWR.
In the end GSWR was the king, running 7, 5 and 3 (exact same combo I had for NBR last time! NBR made £540 runs, GSWR had £530). CR had 3, 3 and 4, while NBR had just 3T. NBR's share value was for a long time below 50, allowing both of us exceed the certificate limit.
Final scores
I must admit I was a wee bit surprised in the final reckoning. On the last round we counted the profits on a spreadsheet and it turned out I beat Olli only 738-719. He had more cash than I had, but still I won, mostly thanks to GSWR, of which I owned 80%. My first count was 6648-6572, but typing this session report I noticed a mistake in my calculations and the correct score was 7648-6572, which is quite decisive.
Again the main owner of NBR lost - this has been the case in all three games so far, interesting enough. So, a good game. I now have two victories against Olli's one.
Variant rules used
I used some modifications from Dave Berry's Unit 3 kit DB3. We agreed the addition of the city of Berwick-upon-Tweed on the east coast was a good one. The east coast has been bit of a dead area, but adding Berwick made it more interesting and I ended up building a route there (it was a good route, too). So that's something I'll be using from now on.
Changing Dumfries to a small town and removing one of the mountains between Glasgow and Carlisle was interesting, too. Dumfries is an easy target for CR, this change makes the historical route to Carlisle more likely and perhaps slightly slows down CR in the beginning. Not bad, and I'll definitely try this again. The extra 58 tile necessary was also used, though not on Dumfries.
Adding a small town of Galashiels in the mountain didn't make a difference in our game. Dave's new stock price index, on the other hand, was an excellent addition. It shows the dividend payments necessary for different levels of price advancement, reducing the amount of mental calculation required a lot. Highly recommended!
Board and SPI after the game
(Originally published in Gameblog)
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