I was especially late in getting to game night this week, and I had already missed some great games such as Catan Geographies: Germany, FITS, and even the start of Steam: Rails to Riches, our Game of the Month!  Thankfully, there were a handfull of other gamers who were also just arriving or finishing up other games, and they were willing to join me in a second game of Steam.

Steam: Rails to Riches

As much as I loved the standard version of Steam that we tried out last week, I had 2 new players in this game, so I decided to teach them the base game instead.  We started with auctioning off initial turn order, and I ended up getting 3rd place for $5.  Chip accepted last place because he didn't want to bid over $5 for any other position (which was always the position he found himself in).  Unfortunately, it may have cost him the game as it did me in my one loss. 

But anyway, despite being 3rd, I was able to build track where I wanted it on the first turn, making the popular connection between Essen and Duisburg through that one town that I can never remember the name of.  From there, I built both down into Düsseldorf and up through an Urbanized town and to Arnhem.  Meanwhile, Chris Wickline (yes, another of the Dudes Named Chris in our group) started off in the south and tried to connect to the southwest and then up into the center of the board.  Josh started in the center, but but seemed to really focus on squeezing his links into and inbetween everyone else's, connecting to many of mine and Chris' as well as a few of Chip's.  Chip, from his last place start, started in the northwest from Nigmejen to Eindhoven, and then throughout the game connected to Mönchengladbach and then clear across to the eastern side of the board.

Josh's brother Graham... Well, he didn't quite get his head around the game right off.  He started in the northeast and didn't make any connection on the first turn.  From there, he mainly focused on forming single link connections in 3 or 4 places on the map and struggled to keep his head above water financially all game long.  By the end, I think that the lightbulb had come on, but it was way too late for him to have a shot.  He's really young, though, and I'm pretty sure it was his first time at game night, so I bet that he'll get better at picking up these kinds of games as he gets some more experience with them.  But he did, however, make some very impressive towers with his little player discs!

So anyway, what my victory was a City Growth action that added 2 gray cubes to the one already in Münster, which alone then netted me 15 points in the last two turns.  Along with sharing the highest income and having the most links, I took the game by 6 points over Chip, with Chris and Josh nipping at heels as well.

Time: 97 minutes
Score: Me 38, Chip 32, Chris W 30, Josh 27, Graham 12
Ratings: Me 9, Chip 8, Chris W 8, Josh 8, Graham 8

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Steam is destined to end up in my top 10 of all time.  The game is just so dynamic!  Even after playing on both maps a few times now, the random goods placement is huge in determining which cities are most valuable.  But then, of course, the goods available for growth and urbanization and everyone's choices in how to use them make a huge difference as well.  And as I've mentioned, you have to continually pay attention to what other players are doing, both to defend yourself a little and to see if you can be opporrunistic and steal away some of the cubes from "their" cities.

And let me make an observation here about strategy.  I've won 4 of the 5 games that I've played so far (and lost the other one by just one freaking point!), and every time, I've had the most links.  Obviously, moving goods is very important as well, but I tend to see other players consistently worrying more about saving money and shipping cubes that they lose sight of making links until the last turn or two when they scramble to pick up a few extra points.  If there is literally any productive way for you to use your Build Track phase, you shouldn't be passing on the opportunity to lay down all three tiles pretty much every turn.  But at the same time, remember that long links aren't worth any more for shipping than are short ones, so connect to towns and look for easy, 1-tile links whenever you can.

Race for the Galaxy (with the Gathering Storm and Rebel vs. Imperium expansions)

Despite it being played all the time at Hypermind, it's been a while since I've personally taken part in a Race for the Galaxy.  I think that I've only played 2 or 3 times since Gathering Storm was released, and I haven't even read the rules to the Rebel vs. Imperium expansion yet.  Since most of the people were going to jump into a game of Long Shot (which I have some pretty strong feelings about), the remainder of us decided to go with Race instead.

In the first game, I had the Imperium Warlord as my starting world along with Imperium Lords in my opening hand.  Obviously, I went for heavy military, even though it was a little hard to come by extra military in the early going; Space Mercenaries saved my butt with its ability to increase its military by discarding cards.  But in having 5 Imperium cards and 5 military worlds, Imperium Lords alone scored me 15 points, and I managed to actually win the game when I powered my way to having a tableau of 12 cards.


We immediately played again (which I think is mandatory for Race), and I got Episilon Eradani as my homeworld.  Again, I fell into a military strategy, scoring even more points than the first game.  But unfortunately for me, Alton got off a massive Consume x2 and had three 6-point developments that worked together to give him the win.


Time: 25 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Me 47, Alton 40, Tommy 30, James 25
Game 2: Alton 63, Me 51, Tommy 32, James 31
Ratings: Me 9, Alton 10, Tommy 10, James 10
  
Race for the Galaxy is still a great game.  Right now, I don't think that I like it quite as much with the expansions as I did just the base game.  Maybe it's just because I'm not familiar enough with the new cards to know what to expect and look for, but between the massive number of cards in the deck and the addition of the victory point goals, it seems a bit more fiddly and cumbersome than it used to.  Because one of the coolest things about Race was how it was so self-contained and elegant.  All I really know is that I need to play it more!

Bang!

After that, it was getting late, but we had seven players looking for some action.  Immediately, I thought of Bang!, which I've been trying to get back to the table over the last month or three.  Four of the others hadn't played before (and it's been an age since the rest of us had), so I taught the rules as best I could from the abysmally bad rulebook.   I was an Outlaw, and since I was sitting right next to the Sheriff (Josh), so I thought that we might have a good shot.

Of course, I didn't know at the time that my "pardners" in outlawdom were the slapstick comedic relief of this particular spaghetti western.  James and his brother Tommy were the other outlaws, which they made pretty obvious very early on.  But what was both sad (for me) and hillarious (to any casual observer) was how they bickered and fought back and forth, even to the point of James taking a shot at his brother at one point.  I could almost see the scene in my head...

<did-dilee-ah, did-dilee-ah>
[cue scene behind the cathouse, brothers James and Tommy crouch as James peers around the corner]
Tommy: Do ya think that the Sheriff knows we out to git 'im?
James [turning to his brother]: Well, stupid, I don't know.  Maybe you ridin' by on yer horse and takin' a shot at 'im mighta been a hint!
Tommy: How else ur we gonna kill 'im?
James: We gotta be all sneekee-like.  Ya know, like one o' them ferign Ninja fellers.
[James looks around the corner again and slowly draws his six-shooter.  A moment passes.]
Tommy: James, lookit dat! [pointing at two dogs mating near-by]
James [startled, turning suddenly]: What the...! [and his gun goes off, shooting Tommy's hat from his head]
Tommy: Dammit, Jimmy!  You tryin' ta kill me?
James: You idgit!  [Holsters his gun, removes his hat, and slaps Tommy with it.]
Tommy [punching his brother]: Momma always liked you better!  Ya momma's boy!
[James and Tommy grab each other, falling to the ground and rolling around as they start wrastlin']
[Hearing the commotion, the Sheriff rides up on his horse a moment later, unbeknownst to the brothers until he draws his gun and says...]
Sheriff Josh:  That's about enough of that!  Put up yer hands and come with me!
[The brothers stop and look at each other.  Cue sound: Wah, wah, wah, wahhhhhh...]
<did-dilee-ah, did-dilee-ah>

So yeah, my chances of winning were pretty slim.  After we were all out of the way, the only real question was for the lawmen to figure out who the Renegade was.  But let me back up a bit, because on the very first round of the game, I had played the Dynamite card.  Starting on my next turn, the dynamite would either blow up or get passed along to the next player.  And for the whole game, through four or five times around the whole table, the Dynamite had continually failed to explode.  That is, until Denise, who happened to be the hidden Renegade, wound up with it one last time. 

"Ka-boom! ", it went, and the game was over.

Time: 33 minutes
Score: Law-folks: Josh (Sheriff), Alton (Deputy), Chip (Deputy) - WIN; Everybody else: Me (Outlaw), James (Outlaw), Tommy (Outlaw), and Denise (Renegade) - LOSE
Ratings: Josh 8.5, Alton 9, Chip 8, Me 7.5, James ?, Tommy 8, Denise 9

Bang! is a lot of fun.  It's by no means perfect, but when it works, it really works!

Other Games Played

Catan Geographies: Germany
Time: 51 minutes
Score: Alton 10, Adam 8, Chris I 8, Mark 7
Ratings: Alton 9, Adam 8.5, Chris I 8.5, Mark 8.5

FITS
Time: 22 and 30 minutes
Game 1: Chris I 20, Mark 18
Game 2: Adam 9, Chris I 9, James -5, Alton -11
Ratings: Chris I 7.5, Adam 9, Mark 8, James 8, Alton 7

Long Shot
Time: 47 minutes
Score: Adam $215, Chip $145, Chris W $125, Graham $110, Chris I $80, Josh $75
Ratings: Adam 7, Chip 7.5, CHris W 8, Graham 8, Chris I 7, Josh 8.5

Steam: Rails to Riches (Base Game)
Time: 99 minutes
Score: Chris I 46, James 44, Alton 43, Adam 34
Ratings: Chris I 7.5, James 7, Alton 8.5, Adam 9