A nice game of 7 Wonders and Ticket to Ride USA

Anita made a suggestion that we all play a family game and so we dug out the family favourite 7 Wonders and played 5 player in which Anita won with 57 points. Later in the day we played Ticket to Ride USA and Anita beat we hands down. As always!

First play of Railways of the World!

Railways of the World - one of the grandest train games of them all. Or so I'm to believe. Having played a heck of a lot of Ticket to Ride, it seemed a good time to start exploring other, more complex train games. I got RotW for Christmas but haven't had the chance to play until today. I'd got all the bits out before - and there were a LOT of bits - and had a good look and had a few plays with the bits, but not really a full proper game.

I was going to set out to have a solo game, but Maya wanted to play, so the two of us went through the rules and I tried the best I could to explain in a child friendly way, plus left out a few rules, and I found surprisingly the game was quite simple! So the two of us set out to conquer Mexico - the game comes with a huge Eastern USA board for up to 6 players whilst also a lower number of players, 2 or 3, can easily play on the Mexican map.

Game start

The basic idea of the game is to deliver wooden cubes. Random cubes are drawn and placed on the cities on the board (each city has a number which corresponds to the number of random cubes drawn). Each city is also coloured representing a type of good that that city takes in. The very basic idea of the game is to lay track to connect a city to another and deliver a good from the start city to its destination.

Each track piece costs, the amount depends on the landscape you want to cross, open, mountain, river etc. And at the start the players have no money and only a type 1 train, which means goods can only be transferred from one city to another. As the game proceeds, more advanced engines can be purchased to transfer goods further.

Connecting Cities

In order to receive money, the player must start giving Bonds to the Shareholders - really you are just getting money from the bank for the bonds to pay for stuff. And every time you move a good along one rail connection, your score marker moves up one - the score marker indicates how much money you "earn" at the end of the turn. Once all the cubes of a city are used up, a chunky City Marker (a water tower, a crossing symbol etc) is placed on the city. Once a certain number of Markers are placed (depending on number of players), the game ends.

Then the number of Bonds are counted and used to deduct from the score to give a Final Score. Poor Maya took out a LOT of Bonds and ended up with a score of 0 even though she did quite well. I was glad she managed to play because she understood the rules perfectly and even reminded me to carry out key parts of the game. I did leave out a couple of rules such as paying shareholders at the end of the turn and Rail Baron cards to simplify on our first play but it was good enough.

A great game all in all, next to get Anita to play!

End game!

"Look what you did! I don't believe what you did!" - in a blaze of Fortune and Glory!

I've been looking forward to playing this game for a long time! Ever since Nigel Heather said he had bought it I couldn't wait for an opportunity to play. The game plays up to 6 so getting that number together would be difficult, but Nigel Wood offered kindly to host and Nigel Heather offered up the game, so several of us put our names in the hat to attend - Julian post several weeks game-isolation on honeymoon in India was definitely up for playing it. So Friday night was set, myself, Brian, Steve, the two Nigels and Julian gathered at Nigel Woods enormous dining table and sat and watched in awe as the huge number of components came out of the box; explaining why F&G has a high price tag - cir £65~70!

From the start one thing is clear, F&G is Indiana Jones in a box. And that is fine with me - Flying Frog have cleverly taken an idea (the core Indiana Jones theme plus films) but instead of using that topic (obviously to avoid huge production costs) as the theme of the game, the game is based around the same topics, time period, events and idealism. And in my view it works perfectly. Everything Jonesy is in there, from the fonts, to the Nazis/Chinese thugs, Zeppelin, hidden tombs, jungles and deserts, fights, shoot outs, missing artefacts, adventures and traps.... it's all in there!

Game start - just look at the number of components and cards!
And that's only half that is on the table - and that's not all
as some are still in the box!

The map at the start - more cards and at the bottom, the first
set of hidden artefacts.

Elements of other games from Flying Frog are in there, such as the magnificent artwork, photos, materials - also the amazing character cards - complete with typical adventuring looking characters from the 1930's, with fab photos. I got Jacques Moreau - a French scoundrel that I hammed up with stereotypical French accent, tunes and one-liners from the Jones movies. The character card contains pros and cons for each of those characters; like in Last Night on Earth, but more of them. The characters also have Dice Amounts - skills such as Agility, Strength etc with a number which is the number of dice you have when trying to complete a task.

The cards all represent different things, enemies, events, tasks, events that occur in a city - then several rewards plus cards indicating the number of hazards a player will have to beat to gain that reward are dealt then a skull placed on the card. A Location card is drawn which shows where this treasure is and a matching  skull icon is placed on the map.

The aim of the game - in the Competitive version as there is a Co-Op and a version verses against villains like Nazis and Thugs - we as players roll die to be the first player, then roll a move die, move towards a treasure and then when it is reached, find out how many hazards need to be beaten to win the artefact.

Mid game - fortune and glory is being won across the board!

The hazards are typical Indiana Jones type traps or events that need overcoming - these are marked with a number of ways to overcome the hazard. This might be Roll 2 x 5's using Agility or 3 x 4's using Strength etc. Some events allow you to do the puzzle or fight a bad guy. If you fail a puzzle, it is flipped to its other side which is a Cliffhanger - a harder puzzle that if you fail means being KO'ed back to your home city and loosing gear, equipment, Glory and even possibly Artefacts in hand! If you pass the puzzle, you gain Glory - blue markers - pass enough and you win the prize; this prize can then be taken to a city and cashed in for Fortune. And Fortune is the aim of the game. Glory can be used to pay for items in the city to take on adventures.

There is much more to the game than this brief overview - but that is the essence. Our game went on for some time, but I didn't mind - I gained a lot of Fortune doing a secret mission in Paris, Nigel was edging closer to winning, Nigel Wood was knocked back several times - whilst trying to complete puzzles; but rallied back in typical Jones fashion near the end of the game to win large amounts of Fortune.

End game - Nigel Heather wins!

Fortune and Glory is a great game - a long game with a large amount of players - but I feel a great game simply because there is so much to do and enjoy, especially with 5 other people racing around the globe looking for hidden artefacts. Can't wait to play again

"Henry, Indy, follow me! I know the way! Yeehaa!"
"Lost in his own museum once, huh?"

Memoir '44 on Steam - a three game try out

Tonight I had a try out of the Steam platform Memoir'44 Online game - basically it is /memoir '44 the board game online - complete with achievements and the ability to play against others online. It's pretty cool, with everything you need to play - the graphics are pretty good; the imagery is the same as the actual game itself. Firstly I played against a Dutch player as British then Germans on a scenario based around the Arnhem Bridge then as the Russians vs the Germans at Stalingrad against a US player. I have to admit its very good - although I don't like the fact that the dice are not thrown from your own hand (impossible in a computer game I know) but there you go. The only major downside I can think of is the fact you have to pay to play by buying War Gold in batches which you then spend in 2/3/4's to play certain maps and scenarios. The better the map/scenario the more you pay. Don't like this idea at all, but what can you do?