1830
There was a planned event tonight, as I got the opportunity to play 1830 again. I actually wasn’t looking forward to this, as I remember that the game really started to drag once you got to a certain point, and the exact same thing happened tonight. Once the threat of bankruptcy has disappeared, it’s just a matter of running down the clock.
I did have a good amount of fun tonight though, as there was a great variance of strategies on display tonight. The first time I played there was a fair amount being played close to the chest, and this time around everyone involved just wanted to try and see what would happen. As it turned out, what happened is that we lost badly, but it was the fun of trying. For example, the explainer told us that we should avoid trying to start 3 of the companies to start with, but I saw an opportunity to give it a try. As it turned out, I didn’t know the rules well enough and it turned out to be a bad idea to try to get the Canadian company off the ground. Sure, I was all alone at the top of the board, but a little competition made it easier to develop a company, and it wasn’t until late in the game that I had the right connections to really bring in the money.
I also consciously bought up a company to immediately crash it, syphoning the cash flow into my Canada company and watching it burn on the coast. It turned out to go pretty well, except that I misinterpreted the trigger that set off the mass rusting of trains, basically hoping that people would keep with the status quo. But...they didn’t, and I was stuck with selling a lot of stock to pay for a diesel train for a company that had at most 3 connections. It sucked, but I managed to make a key connection that allowed me to really boast up the company and it was soon the hot seller at the end of the game, and probably helped me get to third place.
But I found out that I like the gameplay of train games, as long as everyone is in it to play. I would prefer to play a shorter version in the future, but there’s a lot to enjoy and a lot of strategy and guessing. Also having a computer program do all the calculator work really helped, so that we didn’t have to crunch all the numbers, which really bogs down the game. That probably helped make the game a lot more fun.
Showing posts with label 1830. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1830. Show all posts
What I Played Today: February 7
1830, Dominion: Intrigue
Today I played my first train game, 1830. I played with a guy from the store and a few of his friends, and the experience was very different that my usual group, but I managed well enough. The game itself was a DIY project, which looked really good that I assumed it was the professional version.
The game itself involves less to do with trains and more to do with manipulating the stock market and controlling what stocks you have. There are eight main companies that can do well depending if you continue to pay dividends, or save money to increase the resources of the company. Each company gets to expand what tracks they have, and try to increase the value of their stocks...or try to crash a company so that it you can steal from its resources, although I couldn’t figure out how.
The game got away with me, as I spent too much money in the beginning so I couldn’t get a company off the ground at the start. The host pretty much knew what he was doing so he ran away with the game, and the player next to me lost interest early and so it took some effort keeping morale up. It did seem interesting, although there was a lot of the game that didn’t make much sense to me.
For example, the board is dominated with a map of the Northeast, with various cities and rivers, and each company had a starting area, but they were all bunched together and pretty obscure. There were a lot of little rules that make sense in a simulation context, but mainly existed to make the game difficult to follow. How you create routes for the railroads is fun and crunchy, but damn unnecessary, and I know this kind of game has a long history, but I could imagine a much more streamlined stock market manipulation game is possible. I guess I’ll have to try again...I’m signed up to play a different version of this game a few weeks from now, so hopefully I’ll like that one better.
After the game wound down, I went off to a Super Bowl party and watched the end of the game, and then played a couple of games of Dominion with the others. Let me say this; I play Dominion a lot. I like Dominion quite a bit; it’s simple but complicated, it’s got just the right amount of luck and strategy, and I enjoy playing pretty much every time, unless someone slows the game down too much with overly-long combos. That said, I play Dominion a lot, and while the honeymoon isn’t over, I can’t wait until there are more cards available. The last five or so games I’ve played have all been from Intrigue, which has good interaction, but man have I been hit by a torturer too many times to count.
I also wish that the strategy I’ve internalized wasn’t so effective, mainly by trashing terrible cards to get them out of the deck. Having a small deck to make sure you’re always drawing the cards you want each turn works great, and it’s only ever messed up when a particular interaction card gets in the way. Probably the best card of this strategy is Seaside’s Island, which lets you get two cards out of your deck, but still bring them back, so you still get the effects of the victory points without having to keep them in your deck. Islands usually sell out fast for this reason. I’ll just keep trying new strategies until I find one that works just as well.
Today I played my first train game, 1830. I played with a guy from the store and a few of his friends, and the experience was very different that my usual group, but I managed well enough. The game itself was a DIY project, which looked really good that I assumed it was the professional version.The game itself involves less to do with trains and more to do with manipulating the stock market and controlling what stocks you have. There are eight main companies that can do well depending if you continue to pay dividends, or save money to increase the resources of the company. Each company gets to expand what tracks they have, and try to increase the value of their stocks...or try to crash a company so that it you can steal from its resources, although I couldn’t figure out how.
The game got away with me, as I spent too much money in the beginning so I couldn’t get a company off the ground at the start. The host pretty much knew what he was doing so he ran away with the game, and the player next to me lost interest early and so it took some effort keeping morale up. It did seem interesting, although there was a lot of the game that didn’t make much sense to me.
For example, the board is dominated with a map of the Northeast, with various cities and rivers, and each company had a starting area, but they were all bunched together and pretty obscure. There were a lot of little rules that make sense in a simulation context, but mainly existed to make the game difficult to follow. How you create routes for the railroads is fun and crunchy, but damn unnecessary, and I know this kind of game has a long history, but I could imagine a much more streamlined stock market manipulation game is possible. I guess I’ll have to try again...I’m signed up to play a different version of this game a few weeks from now, so hopefully I’ll like that one better.
After the game wound down, I went off to a Super Bowl party and watched the end of the game, and then played a couple of games of Dominion with the others. Let me say this; I play Dominion a lot. I like Dominion quite a bit; it’s simple but complicated, it’s got just the right amount of luck and strategy, and I enjoy playing pretty much every time, unless someone slows the game down too much with overly-long combos. That said, I play Dominion a lot, and while the honeymoon isn’t over, I can’t wait until there are more cards available. The last five or so games I’ve played have all been from Intrigue, which has good interaction, but man have I been hit by a torturer too many times to count.I also wish that the strategy I’ve internalized wasn’t so effective, mainly by trashing terrible cards to get them out of the deck. Having a small deck to make sure you’re always drawing the cards you want each turn works great, and it’s only ever messed up when a particular interaction card gets in the way. Probably the best card of this strategy is Seaside’s Island, which lets you get two cards out of your deck, but still bring them back, so you still get the effects of the victory points without having to keep them in your deck. Islands usually sell out fast for this reason. I’ll just keep trying new strategies until I find one that works just as well.
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