Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and though the rain did its best, Ian arrived by bike to join Anja and Louie, Martin, and myself. While we waited for Steve - at work - and Adam - waiting out the rain - we cracked out a one-round game of Cabanga.
Ian won the round with three of us on 2 points and Louie on 3. But with the late arrivals now here, it was time to split into groups. Anticipating Louie's keenness, I'd brought Robot Quest Arena and he got that set up with Dad and Adam. Meantime Martin talked Ian, Anja and I through the quirky rules of Cascadero. Andrew has already covered this in the previous post, but it felt on first blush a bit like Reiner thinking How can I make Babylonia more thinky, and longer. The map is still dynamic and it's still about connections, but no longer predominantly focused on having a huge network - although it doesn't hurt.
I'd helped them set up RQA but I didn't have time to do a brief overview as I was trying to hold everything about Cascedero in my head, a task I was to fail at. But Adam scanned the rules and they were up and running. Louie had a P2 W2 record at this, could he keep his 100% intact? As you can see, Steve had other ideas.
We kicked off in Cascadero and despite Martin's clear explanation I had already rearranged a pivotal rule in my head, and I began what I thought was canny play only to subsequently notice everyone else was scoring points. For myself if nobody else: you don't score a point per envoy in a network that joins a town. But you do want to arrive later than the other players, with at least two envoys. Or one envoy with a seal. Where do you get a seal from? From Reiner's five available tracks up which you are pushing cubes for bonuses.
Many of these bonuses are better for the first claimant, so each track has an element of racing to it. But Cascadero also has objectives - eg first to connect like-coloured towns, first to get all cubes to x spot or above on the track - and, lest we forget, the very Knizian bunfight taking place on the board itself, where there is racing-to, blocking, hoping-none-will-block and general chicanery. My head was hurting, but I was at least entertained by the play on Radio RQA transmitting from the other side of the table.
Pinter would be proud. I advised Louie to make a note of social services number and then wondered who I could call as Anja and I watched Ian and Martin sear off up the track, fifteen or so points ahead of us. Martin's blue cube had already reached the top of the track (should you not complete the track of your own colour by game-end, it's an auto-lose) whereas we were also lagging in the cube department. The board looked like a dog had eaten some Totterdown Lego and thrown up and Anja and I, united in our despair, agreed that discs would have been better than horsemen for 'legibility issues'. I insisted on lying my envoys flat, telling everyone that it made the board easier to read, but secretly feeling that they deserved no better, having disappointed me.
In the Robo Arena, Adam was telling Louie "This is how it feels" in a tone of voice that suggested some kind of frozen dish was being served. In Cascadero, the end was approaching. Ian had few envoys left and Martin kept bemoaning his lack of seals. From somewhere, Steve had produced a cuddly seal and kept making it talk, adding a modicum of surreality to proceedings. But when things ended, they ended surprisingly. It was tense, so tense that when Martin mentioned closing the purple curtain nobody had the will to say anything juvenile. Anja and I had staged a mini-recovery of sorts, though we still lagged and Anja's cube hadn't reached the top of her orange track. I knew I needed to place just one envoy to get the yellow cities connection award (2 points) but I'd totally forgotten the 10 point bonus for connecting all coloured cities. I think Anja may have too; she got the reward but seemed remarkably underwhelmed by it, not even bothering to announce, or maybe even award, her big points swing after quietly placing an envoy:
I meant to round off by saying how Cascadero is *very different* from Babylonia and how erroneous my first impression was. It's less accessible and more ponderously paced, but I liked it.
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