Down, down under

With Sally away walking the next section of Offa's Dyke with her pal, Saturday night opened up for games and maybe in hindsight we should have gone with Katy's suggestion of Caverna: gentle field-ploughing and animal husbandry on our own boards. Adam was certainly amenable, but Ian and I both felt that it's too long with four, and I hazarded I was in the mood for something a bit more feisty. After some gentle cajoling of Katy (via the medium of purple trains) we agreed to play Railways of the World, and at Adam's suggestion broke out the (massive) Australia map. 

Before we got started though, Adam treated us to the sight of jumping beans - not plastic cocoons with ball-bearings in, but the actual thing, from all the way across the Pacific. Unbeknownst to me, and beknownst to me only now after Adam's explanation, the 'beans' jump about because there's a little creature inside them that try to move their home into the shade when they get too warm. 

With that banging opener done, we spent about half an hour or so struggling with Australia's 'one or two' (© me) extra rules before starting, which I'll attempt to summarise here. One is that as well as cities you have towns, and when you build over them, ping! they turn into cities, instantly adding more fruitful bounty to your route (a fact I gleefully anticipated) whilst also instantly making your level 2 train essentially redundant (a fact a stupidly didn't) as you've generated extra stops. 

Australia is also broken into territories, and to cross from one to another you need to stop at a border city to navigate the connection (thematically, this is because Australian railway builders used lots of different gauges) or own a special card to cross the border out in the open plains. There's a similar card-payment method for crossing the ferry to Tasmania. 

Finally - with the exception of a few new cards - there are the switchbacks, a new and exciting addition that we mostly forgot all about, where you can split your track into different directions! Here below is one of the two occasions this actually occurred:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After Katy proclaimed the game didn't have enough options and was therefore confusing, and realising we didn't need all the map for four, we kicked off with bidding for turn order. I don't remember who started now - Ian? - but he and Adam immediately stepped into competition in Oz's comparatively busy southeast. I began my building in Tasmania and Katy started what would be a game-long project of carving a route across Australia's outback, from Adelaide to Palmerston.

I was first to leap, jumping bean style, a little way up the track as I completed the Launceston delivery bonus. I slipped the ferry staff a few quid and connected to the mainland, as Ian and Adam continued their wary circling around the east coast. Katy remained largely unmolested in midwest, and despite protestations at having no idea what to do, remained competitive. If I had concerns about my almost complete lack of delivering anything, Ian's mood at this point was starting to plunge, and as well as a surfeit of bonds and shitty income he had to put up with good-natured teasing about his doomy prophesising about having no plans and everything turning to shit.

My chuckling was about to evaporate however, as mid-game Ian beat me to a long-distance route, then Adam blocked me out of another simply as a dick move, and then, in a narrative twist too convoluted (and boring for those not present) to go into here, I was punished retrospectively for a mistake I didn't make, and I began a prolonged rant about how I was surprised and let down by everyone - mostly joking, but not entirely. I won't mention Katy ra-ra-ing in delight at this point or Adam chortling into his cosy blanket I had provided. 

Mid-game (above) you can see Katy's purple trains have connected the north/south coasts, Adam is mostly on the east whereas Ian and I (green/red) are lagging behind them on the scoretrack, where it's become two-horse race for first, with Katy leading but Adam with considerably fewer bonds to worry about. With no Barons in sight it was a matter of simply doing best on the board as the place filled up with steam, mostly from out of my ears.

Halfway through we spotted that turn order in Australia isn't just clockwise from starting player - probably because of the Coriolis effect - but we stuck to our standard practice. I think we clarified one or two cards as well, but at this point my attention was on the fact I'd built a route without a huge amount of delivering options, and needed to spend a few turns upgrading my train and hoisting my bond haul from three to rather more. Meantime the clock ticked away, and the end could be scented in the wind...

When it came it wasn't sudden, but it was sudden enough that Katy's last eked-out two-point delivery was enough to keep her a fraction ahead of Adam, despite having eight bonds. Some way behind them on the track, Ian and I dragged ourselves around the clock and finished level, with Ian's $4k beating my single $1k to snatch third on the tiebreaker. Adam ruminated quietly as I reflected - mostly inwardly - on how chastening the experience had been, and grumbled that we should have played Caverna. We found the Barons in the box as we packed away.

Even ignoring mine and Ian's shoutier/gloomier moments, this did feel rather feistier than standard Railways for some reason, and we decided co-operative palette-cleansers to warm up the room would be good, landing on Fun Facts, to be followed by So Clover. Katy contributed extra warmth by drawing cocks on Adam's chevron (not a euphemism) a fact she desperately tried to hide when I snapped a picture. 

Fun Facts was good, as it always is (in my opinion). We allowed the starting player the right of veto for invasive/boring questions and learnt that Ian would be willing to sacrifice 18 years of his life for the power of teleportation. I put zero, mainly because I was concerned I'd get lazy. "You could teleport to the moon!" Adam protested, but I hadn't incorporated cosmic travel into my thinking. Also, I do like being alive.

We were also asked how old we felt on the inside, and clarified that the card meant in spirit so we could ignore Adam's knee. Both he and I wrestled with this one, feeling as we do alternately young and jaded, and settled on something in the mid/late forties. Katy felt exactly as old as she was, and Ian felt 24. "I've always been like this" he clarified mournfully. 

It was a decent effort without troubling the hall of legends - 21/32. As is my wont I forgot to take photos of So Clover, which is a shame because this was a cracker, with some clever clues you'll have to imagine, for words I have now forgotten. We began with a six, followed it with two more, and only came a cropper on Adam's clover when somehow - somehow! - we didn't spot that picture went with snap. Still, 22/24 ain't bad! 

Unbelievably it was now a quarter to midnight, and although I'd have been up for another game a rare GNN Saturday came to a close. With apologies for my mid-evening ranting, thanks all. I would love to go railwaying in Australia again!