The Tao of Gaming

This week my son set a personal best record for "Most vomiting in a week." I think it's also a family record, and we'll apply to Guinness. His is not the only recent illnes, so it's entirely appropriate that I picked up Pandemic, the latest co-operative game. [Full Disclosure, I've met the designer several times and played a prototype].

The players are rushing to find the cure to four epidemics, while ensuring that casualties don't rush over the board. The players share a deck, which has one card for each city. The cities have four "suits" (which matches one of the four diseases). You take your turn (of four actions), then get some cards and flip up an infection card. Your actions include:

• Helping sick people (where you are),
• Building a research station (which requires having the matching card of the city you are in),
• Finding the cure requires playing five cards of the same suit at a research station,
• Handing a card to another player (in the same city, and you can only pass the card if it names the city you are both in),
• Moving (either slowly, one step at a time, or playing a card to go to a city, or flying directly between research stations).

After that you flip the top card of the infection deck, and add a cube (representing more infected people) to the city. If a city already has three matching cubes (and the board starts seeded), then you have an outbreak ... place one cube in each adjacent city.

The players deck also has epidemic cards. You take the bottom card of the infection deck and add three cubes (which may cause an outbreak), then you shuffle that and the discards and put them all on top of the deck. This means that you have 'hot spots' — cards that will show up again and again.

You win if all four cures are found (no matter the state of the board). You lose if there are too many outbreaks, you run out of cubes of any color, or when you exhaust the player deck.

Finally, each player has a role — a special ability that breaks the rules. The medic can cure multiple cubes for an action, the dispatcher can spend his actions moving other people. The scientist only needs four cards to find the cure, the researcher can give cards away without restriction, and the Operations Guy can build research stations without a card. These roles will nudge each player to prefer certain actions, and ensure that each game will be slightly different (if you play with 4; 2-3 players have more combinations).

I've pushed around the pieces a bit, but I don't the game has changed significantly since I played it. So you get random thoughts:

• In theory you could play this with open hands (the rules suggest that for a first game), which pushes this dangerously close to solitaire. In fact, Rob Rossney suggests just that. (I did try a solo game like that at Normal settings, just to refresh myself on the rules, and I suspect that Rob is correct).
• The "not being able to discuss your exact cards" idea is mentioned, but that is a bit odd, because you can exchange cards if you are both in the city named by the card. Since knowing the name tells you everything else about the card, that doesn't quite work.
• As I've said before, I mildly smitten with co-operative games, and this is another example. J pushed for this purchase, which surprised me. I'm sure I'll play this soon.
• The game looks nice, but the (very large) pawns and houses are too big for the board. It's tough to tell where some pieces are, especially when 2-3 are in the same city. A mild complaint.
• Let me join in the admiration for the elegant epidemic mechanics. I remember thinking "that's clever" when I first saw it.

Update: I've played a few games of the solo hard variant. Yet to win.

Last night I played (and taught) a game of Through the Ages. Did it change my opinion of the game? Not really.

One troubling aspect when discussing this game — so many 'official' ways to play. We played the 3 epoch full game (so no wars, no removing population at the end of the age). And since it was a two player game, no pacts. And a few rules were of the "Oh, we should have done that" variety.

Still, I had a fun time. Despite being militarily ahead for the second half of the game (and twice playing the "Steal 7 VP" aggression), I managed to almost go coast-to-coast while losing. (I was ahead for one turn).

So anyway, there's a copy down here, which probably means my next 100 games of Race will take longer than the last hundred.

Update: Oh, may as well mention that the components a) an improvement and b) still annoying. The area for card drafting is too small (that may have been true in the original ... was I playing with a modified set?). The wooden discs are easier to manipulate, but the see=through beads made reading costs easier. And there should just be more player markers. The rules looked cleaned up a bit, too.

The ideal set would use a cribbage style board for scoring (actually a four-player cribbage board would work well) to avoid bumping VPs around.

I just noticed you can see photos from Nuremburg. (Commentary in French). Apparently Shadows over Camelot has an expansion coming out. Also spotted ... Neuland, the new Titan, the new Chinatown. A few that I'm guessing from the photos (a Metropolis remake?). An Auf Achse remake?

And some new games, too.

Apart from being on the schneid at Race (I've lost something like 8 in a row), I got in a game of Rails of Europe. This is an expansion to "Eagle's very popular game about building Railroads." (I guess there was a trademark fight about Railroad Tycoon, because the expansion has Glenn Dover's name, and Eagle's logo ... but those words don't appear anywhere).

Anyway, I've already mentioned my thoughts about Railroad Tycoon, so just a few random thoughts.

• This is 'done right.' A small box with just the map and cards. Re-use all the components. (Not that I own RR Tycoon).
• There are something like a dozen baron cards, and you get to draw two and keep one. Hopefully they are more balanced. Hopefully an improvement.
• The major connections (points for linking two cities) are always available, unlike the original where they may show up or not. That seems like an improvement.
• I don't remember the original income track, but this seems the same.

Our game was fast. Maybe 100 minutes, with a few minutes of rules refreshers.

Having played another time or two, I do wish RR Tycoon was more unforgiving about cash. It seem taking out shares wily-nily to save actions always wins. Perhaps I'm just used to Age of Steam. Yesterday, If I guessed the ending turn correctly I would have lost by about 10 points, despite having taken out five shares to my opponent's twenty. (Each share subtracts a point at the end). One of those "Small rule changes has a big impact" -- how each game handles balancing the leader. AoS reduces income and VP; RR Tycoon has an income trace that stagnates, but costs no VPs.

In any case, I could see a number of variants that could easily shift the balance a bit (if so inclined). Make each share only earn $4,000 (instead of $5), or make each share cost 2 VPs at the end seem obvious.

I'd also consider going with an Age of Steam style auction for player order ... I don't particularly care for auctioning start player and then having everyone else go around the table.

In any case, Rails of Europe is a mild improvement and people who like RR Tycoon will probably like this. For me, it's something to play every now and then, and then remember that I should pack the original game ...