Like trains (or is it buses?) that appear to arrive all at once the Bracknell branch of GNN found themselves with little time in their busy schedules to squeeze in a game or three. My opponent on this occasion was a friend called James, who I'm slowly drawing into the sticky web of gaming. Last week I introduced him to Carcassonne and Dominion but this week current favourite Ticket to Ride was given a run out.
James had read the rules previous to my arrival - a fact missed by me as I started to explain them and couldn't understand why he seemed to know everything already - so we were straight into it. James showed no signs of being a novice as he claimed large trails across the west coast and kept nicely ahead of me as I pottered around the central regions making little criss cross patterns. As the game drew to a close James had forged too much of a lead and had taken the longest route bonus and ran out a comfortable winner.
In the second game of TTR though it was neck a neck right up to the point where James took a gamble on two new routes close to the end of the game, only to realise he didn't have enough trains to complete them. This time through luck rather than judgement I won the game.
Our final game was Carcassonne. With the lead changing hands several times throughout it came down to the final count of who had the most farmers. I squeezed James out with a narrow 5-to-4 farmers and collected the massive farms bonus. James noticed post match that he had a chance to score farms all on his own but had chosen to challenge for the bigger area with me. Had he not done this he would have won.
I left him with Aton to look at, and hopefully next time we will see if that lives up to expectations.
James had read the rules previous to my arrival - a fact missed by me as I started to explain them and couldn't understand why he seemed to know everything already - so we were straight into it. James showed no signs of being a novice as he claimed large trails across the west coast and kept nicely ahead of me as I pottered around the central regions making little criss cross patterns. As the game drew to a close James had forged too much of a lead and had taken the longest route bonus and ran out a comfortable winner.
In the second game of TTR though it was neck a neck right up to the point where James took a gamble on two new routes close to the end of the game, only to realise he didn't have enough trains to complete them. This time through luck rather than judgement I won the game.
Our final game was Carcassonne. With the lead changing hands several times throughout it came down to the final count of who had the most farmers. I squeezed James out with a narrow 5-to-4 farmers and collected the massive farms bonus. James noticed post match that he had a chance to score farms all on his own but had chosen to challenge for the bigger area with me. Had he not done this he would have won.
I left him with Aton to look at, and hopefully next time we will see if that lives up to expectations.
I always play a house-rule with farming that two farmers can supply the same city if they are farming different areas. This seems to make more sense than the official rule and makes the farming element less decisive, though very much still a potential game-winner.
ReplyDeleteFarmers in the same area still contest it by number as usual.
Have you played Aton yourself yet Chris?
ReplyDeleteOnly against myself to check the rules. I won.
ReplyDeleteAnd lost. It seemed to play nicely.
Yeah it's lovely. Sam and I have had some tense matches — they get increasingly so, as you get a feel for the potential game-winning moves.
ReplyDeleteJoe WOULD say it's lovely, he's 4-3 up!
ReplyDeleteHEY now! So I am...
ReplyDelete