Game(s) Played:
Kings Of Air And Steam
Small World
Glory To Rome
Ah, the things you can do with a free Saturday. And since this is a blog primarily about boardgaming, that's exactly what we did! Zoom zoom zoom!
Game #1 – Kings Of Air And Steam
Player(s):
Hayen (Red)
Mo (White)
As promised in my last post, here are two session reports of Kings Of Air And Steam for the price of reading one blog post! After oohing and aahing over the beautifully done artwork fo the components, I picked up "The Rose & Thorn" team whilst Mo got "The DaVinci" team and we were raring to go.
Man does it look pretty
In Kings Of Air And Steam, each team represents a shipping company that uses both air and steam as its modes of transport to ship goods to cities that need them. Your Airship serves as the transportation of goods between out-in-the-woods factories and your train depots, whilst your trains serve as the transportation of goods to the various cities on the map. Each team brings its own individuality to the table through its unique character abilities, special movement cards and even varying specs of its Airships and Trains.
I was occupying the Luxuries & Machineries factories on the left whilst Mo sat on the Food & Chemicals factories up top and beat me to the Textiles factory at right more often than not
My "artistic" shot
Mo started first and chose a really good location where he had 3 factories within 7 hexes. I decided to avoid the conflict and occupied a tiny corner of the map with 2 factories. I quickly got a headstart in connecting my train depots to boost my shipping to the cities as my 2 factories were close enough that I could pick-up, drop-off and deliver within the same round. My character's ability (may choose to return a good to supply instead of filling up the city slot during delivery) seemed average compared to Mo's transmogrify (change 1 good into another 2 of the same type) which he abused late game to pull off $32 & $40 deliveries. That on top of his better Airship & good positioning consigned me to defeat though I did quite well to hold my own.
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (129 Victory Points – $74 (74) + 4 Depots (40) + Train Lv5 (15))
Dead Last – Hayen (105 Victory Points – $60 (60) + 4 Depots (40) + Train Lv4 (5))
The winner's tableau
Well we lost but we had a fun time
Game #2 – Kings Of Air And Steam
Player(s):
Hayen (Red)
Mo (White)
We decided to go another round with different teams, and so it was "The Emperor" vs "The Godfather"! Both my character abilities were quite decent in that one would give me a free depot whilst the other would give me the money to build 2 free depots. In hindsight I should have not been so greedy and taken the free depot had I taken a look at "The Godfather"'s abilities... Mo had the ability to steal $3 off me every time his Airship crossed paths with mine AND his special movement card steals goods from my Airship or Depot.
Naturally Mo played to his strengths here and tagged along with me every step of the way and just hung around in my area using the stolen money to build his depots right up to the area where we were so he could unload his stolen goods and deliver them away. Sadly, the conclusion to this game was known long before its sad, sad end.
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (118 Victory Points)
Dead Last – Hayen (68 Victory Points)
Ezekiel "Light Fingers" Crane
Sigh, so much for being loaded
Rating: 8 / 10
Kings Of Air And Steam may seem daunting at first, particularly when you need to plan 4 moves ahead each round but with the compensating actions available to each Player, good Players need not worry about inefficient turns. I really enjoyed playing Kings Of Air And Steam although I played so badly today and that speaks a lot of a game to me. If I have any negative thoughts about the game, it's the way the market can give a sudden random advantage to a Player where his goods could nearly double in value in a single round depending on the randomness of the market tiles. Whilst most goods do end up hitting the maximum value of $8 per good at some point in the game, for it to happen to a good currently monopolized by a particular Player kinda skews the game in their favour. Think this becomes less of a problem in bigger games though, so look forward to the coming session reports with 3/4 Players!
Game #3 – Small World
Player(s):
Hayen
Mo
Mo had forgotten what Small World was about and for those not in the know, Small World is about taking control of strange fantasy races and dominating the map set before you. What sets it apart from other conquest games is that your goal is not to outright conquer everything, but to just hold territories for as long as you possibly can, which would mean holding a territory for multiple turns is more valuable than conquering new territories only to lose them.
Mo picked up the Merchant Giants which occupied a mountainous region in the corner and quickly racked up the points due to their Merchant-y nature. My Berserk Humans on the other hand were not very Berserk-y in that most of the land I conquered were empty territories and didn't require anybody to be full of bloodlust. I was a bit too greedy for farmland which gives Humans a bonus and stretched myself a fair bit too far for the Seafaring Sorcerers to ultimately capitalize on my vulnerabilities.
This was my precarious predicament
Mo loved the Sorcerers and had half the map well in hand by the time he retired them for the Hill Ghouls which he couldn't capitalize in time because the game had already ended. My strange Forest Skeletons had taken all that they could and I had my Wealthy Trolls throw up a defensive barrier for my last stand against the Ghouls but our showdown never took place because the game had ended.
The Wealthy Trolls last stand sounds weird
Time Taken: 60 minutes
Results Of Game
Winna – Mo (110 Victory Coins)
Dead Last – Hayen (89 Victory Coins)
Mo's favourite race
The winner's races
The loser's races
Rating: 8 / 10
Game #4 – Glory To Rome
Player(s):
Hayen
Mo
Glory To Rome is a game like no other. I've heard it being called "The most broken good game in existence" and you will see in a minute that this is true.
I quickly dropped a Statue on a Rubble site to get some quick influence before putting the Latrine (may discard a card to Pool before performing Thinker action) down on a whim. I realized in a 2 Player game that I could throw a card I would like to Patron by Thinking on my opponent's turn and getaway with Patroning him the next turn FIRST. Then I picked up the Scriptorium (may use 1 Marble to complete any structure) and Forum (one Client of each WINS game) and I found my cheating way to win this game.
It was really hard to take for Mo particularly because he was having the time of his life with his Sewer by stockpiling all his order cards and moving them to the Vault. So yea, Glory To Rome is broken, but a really good broken game.
He was really wondering why I had a rainbow list of Clients
Time Taken: 30 minutes
Results Of Game
Winna – Hayen (Forum Win)
Dead Last – Mo
Rating: 9 / 10
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