In the real game, the miniatures are HeroClix (etc) style that have two counters in the base — one for life, and one for time. The core idea (which reminds me of Neuland) is that each action you have costs you a number of phases. So, if you just move (or do nothing), then you'll go again next phase. If you attack, you'll have to rest a phase. Mega-attacks may make you rest two phases. If multiple characters go in one phase, you alternate with the player who didn't move recently going first. (So, alternate as much as possible).

Each miniature has a few stats — melee defense, magic defense, life and 'hero points' (basically, a point cost used for army balancing). These are all single digit numbers. Each character also has one (or more?) attacks.

Attacking works as follows — each attack has a number of dice. You roll that many d10s. 1-3s fails, 4-10s succeed (and cause one damage). Any '10' is a critical, but an attack either has a critical or doesn't, multiples don't matter. Defender then rolls his defense and subtracts one wound for each success.

Pretty simple.

The other cool idea (besides having different actions fatigue for a number of phases) is that each character gets to pick two special ability cards before the battle. They have to match in some way. (So a card may say "Priest" or "Elf" or "This specific character only." and only Priests/Elves/That Dude can use that ability). These run the gamut. In our game we had a "Charge" (run an extra space, get a better attack), a super-shield, holy-healing, magic-missles, and the like. Fun. Abilities can be used once per turn (10 phases).

In a real game, these abilities aren't revealed until used. (Since one player had built the teams, we had them opened). That's intriguing, especially if the cards are all well balanced.

Anyway, what can I say after one game?

• Lots of chrome, dead-easy rules. I think they could have made them slightly more complicated. Couldn't some characters/abilities need a 5 to succeed, instead of a 4? Maybe some abilities could allow for multiple criticals? But there's a lot to be said for the simplicity, especially for a game with this much chrome.
• It was fast. We played a capture the flag 2 on 2, where you get points for each kill (dead characters respawn), and score points for being on/adjacent to the VP spots (scored at the end of phase 5 or 10). It felt like 20-30 minutes. Maybe a better fight would be 3-on-3, which would take 60-75 minutes (more characters would slow down each phase and also increase the VP requirements).
• Decisions. Even with a 2 on 2, that meant 8 special abilities and decisions — do we gang up on the paladin (who can heal people) and try to kill him or use the mega-panic attack to force the other team to runaway? Should the tank charge or not? Since most special abilities are once/10 phases, timing is tough.
• I can't speak to this personally, but I'm assured that the feel of the videogame is well done.
• My decision to roll lots of 1s, 2s, and 3s was not strategically sound. The best laid plans of orcs gang aft aglee, you know.

• Collectability — Aye, there's the rub. You only need a few miniatures, but you'll want all the cards. Of course, you can probably just print them out (or use proxies), unless you are playing in tournaments or whatever. No rarity (I'm told), so you can probably buy each miniature for $5-6 to just get the few you want. (Boosters are $15 for 3 miniatures and 6-ish cards?)
• Any collectable game needs opponents. I hear WoW has a few fans, so I'm guessing the intial reaction will be positive. No problems there.
• Variability — The few characters I played seemed nice, but if the games unbalanced then you'll play the same battles over and over. On the other hand, if it is balanced, then 3 character teams (with say, 30 characters on each side) gives ~4000 possible teams for each side, and that's not counting all the special abilities. I don't think that the game is deep enough to warrant this (see my note about rolling 1-3s), but I do enjoy the customization aspect of CCGs. Look at Agricola, we like variability .... any game that gives an excuse to argue for a few hours about balance of X v Y has a soft spot in my heart.

Update: According to a reviewer on BGG who talked to a demo'er at GenCon, the miniatures will have rarity (common, rare and epic, which does not inspire confidence). And there are three factions of who knows how many minis each. Each miniature should always have the same two cards, as well, and cards work with the miniature they are packaged with.

That reviewer and my friend made the same point -- they'll go to a second hand reseller and buy the stuff they want. (My friend will try to convince the FLGS to sell 'singles').

So I figured I'd review it.

The table was a PokerPro, by PokerTek. Here's how it works. There's a main screen built into the center of the table. It shows each players stack (as a numeric value) the amount of chips in the pot (and rake), who still has cards, the dealer button, whose turn it is to act and (when the hand is done) displays the winning hand, moves the money around and redeals. Just to be clear, the players you are playing are sitting at the same table with you. (I assume the table could handle remote players, but the game is set up as "Face to Face, but computer moderated."

Each player has their own touchscreen. This shows the table (and gives you the first names of everyone), acts as your menu (Check/Call, Bet/Raise, Fold) and your cards. Your cards are face down, unless you touch them, at which point they curl up. You'll want to cup your hands around them so that others can't peek (just like real cards).

From my standpoint, there is a lot to like. No arguments about string bets. No folding out of turn. The rules are enforced by code. Presumably no mistakes in reading the winner or splitting chips, making change, and the like (I never saw any obvious ones). The table I was on only did no-limit hold-em, but even then the time savings were pretty significant (the computer pauses at the end of the hand to let you see the cards, but it still only takes about 10 seconds between one hand ending and the next hand's deal. You can review the prior hands results on your personal screen). In a game like Omaha Hi/Low, the time saved on split pots would be fairly significant.

Mechanically, the table seems rugged ... I witnessed two drinks spilled on the main LCD (and quickly wiped up ... no problems). The touchscreens are hard to operate with fingers, but the corner of your ID card works well. You have to double-tap a selection to bet/raise/fold, so accidental bets aren't a major problem. But it can occur. A player who was trying to 'clean' his screen by rubbing it with the corner of the card went all in once, and I witnessed several new players run out of time trying to enter the right bet amount, via a calculator interface. There are 'hot-key' standard bets (minimum, 2x blind, 4x blind, pot, all-in). There are a few places the GUI could be cleaner, but once our group had figured out the basics, almost no problems.

The rake was a bit higher than I remember (10%, going by 50 cent intervals, capped at $6), but I normally play limit and it may be configurable. I'm used to $1 increments capped at $4 or $5. On the other hand, with no dealer to tip that saves you the extra dollar (assuming you normally tip). The casino director indicated that they didn't buy the equipment ... PokerTek provided it in exchange for part of the rake.

Showing all of the players first names is a good idea, too. I imagine that cruise poker is more social than casino poker (since you play most the same people over the course of a week), but it's just nice to have the table act as introducer. Having an opponent named "Hung" is good for roughly 10 hours of jokes, FYI.

I was disappointed that there weren't multiple tables and I never got to see how the PokerPro ran a tournament. (The casino had plenty of blackjack/slot/bingo 'tournaments' I'd imagine a $20 or $50 fixed tournament would be a big way to get non-gamblers to pony up... but with only one table it was probably easier to just leave it set as a money game). I imagine you'd see real time savings there, as it automatically monitors tables (and breaks up smaller tables), adjusts blind structure, colors up, moves people around, etc. I find the claims of 30% speedup in tournaments easy to believe.

Casinos must love it — faster throughput (so, more money raked), no dealers to pay (and keep a close eye on, to prevent theft), automatic accounting (and real time reporting). Most everyone seemed wary at the start, but quickly got over it. I suppose the programmers could have put in backdoors for when they play, but I suspect I'm less likely to get jobbed than with a random dealer (who may have a friend or two). I do wonder what happens during a power outage, and how often (and redundantly) each player's balance is updated.

The cruise also didn't have the kiosk where you swipe your card to get on the waiting list and the software handles the wait list. It was handled by the players themselves, which works fine for a small group, but would be another big benefit for a large casino.

About the only downside is that players need cards (with a PIN) and buyin away from the table. That's usually only a five minute process, but it is easier to just walk up to a table and drop your money onto it. From the casino's POV, that's a feature, as they don't have to collect (and monitor) money from each table. The money is tied to an account, not a card, so if you lose your card you just cancel it (presumably by showing proof of ID), assuming that whoever got your card hasn't played it and lost all your money to their card ... but even if they did, I suspect they could trace it.

Probably those of you who go to Vegas more often have already seen these ... I'm told they've just started appearing on cruise ships in the last 6-12 months. These babies really are impressive, and I'd love to see them handling gaming in our sense of the word. Sadly there's not much money to be made there, as compared to poker. But they do show what could be done ...

Update: And, just so you know (since it came up earlier), my comment spam filter blocks the word "Poker." So call it P*ker or "The Great Game" or "The Curse" or what have you. Calling it "MILFs" or some such may get the filter pissed off at you, though.

Hannibal is an odd duck, indeed. It's a war game where you don't want to fight. The oft-maligned battle deck works reasonably well in this regard. While I'm not sure how much skill there is in the tactical little mini-game, it does encapsulate the fact army size (and lead skill) advantage only go so far. If I get 15 cards and you get 10, I'm probably going to win, but a good deal (a few of the 'wild' reserve cards) negates that advantage.

In a sense, this makes it tough to review. In my learning game (earlier this year) my opponent took pains to explain that Hannibal is really an area control game ... but if you start losing battles, then you lose support. In this game, War really is just a continuation of politics.

Still, a nicely realized game. The rules aren't that difficult to explain (I probably spent 15-20 minutes on the basics, and then brought up issues as they occurred. I did have to refer to the rulebook, but for a second game after several months off, that's expected). Now that I'm comfortable, I could probably explain the rules cleanly in 15-20 minutes.

But apart from rules, there is the play. You have an interesting asymmetry. Hannibal will rampage through Italy, but he should eventually be whittled down via attrition. The Romans gain more units each turn (and all of them can appear in Italy, while Carthage has to ship troops in), but the card deck can really give them a boost. So an ideal battle (for the Romans) would be fight a few rounds and then withdraw (so that each side suffers equal losses). But what often happens is that the Roman general gets outmatched by a few cards, Hannibal's skill let him block any withdraws, and then a route occurs. Carthage suffers 2-3 casualties (which is several years worth of recruits) but the Roman army is annihilated.

Still, Rome can survive that.

My 'first' game this week was called when Hannibal died very early in a battle he had a slight advantage in. (In the new version of the game, you don't automatically lose when he dies, but the long term effects are devastating. Certainly if he dies before the half way point, you've probably lost). In the second game he was more successful and wiped out one Roman army most turns (which cover several years of campaigning). Some revolts in Numidia and Celtiberia kept things close but eventually there just weren't enough Romans in Italy to take care of business, and the game was called due to time and what appeared to be a roman political collapse.

But those two games (the second game called on Turn 6, I believe, and the first on turn 3) took less than four hours, including rules and a few interruptions. Since a game is 9 turns normally, roughly 1 game was played. With some practice, this could reasonably be a 2.5 hour game (and obviously shorter on the games where on side gets an early automatic victory).

Getting Paths of Glory or Here I Stand to the table seem remote, but this is comparatively fast and teachable, and I'm glad I picked up a copy.

My comments on Dry Gulch include:

the event mechanism begs to be used to greater effect

Not really a sequel, just a smaller game with the same theme, Dry Gulch Junction has players again erecting buildings in the eponymous town. Each player starts with a hand of 8 buildings, which have costs, names and suits. The core of the game (in my mind) sees four improvment cards flipped up. Improvements are 2nd (or 3rd) stories, which have a cost and suit as well. You can only build a 2nd story diamond card on a diamond building. But each improvement also features a claim.

Claims provide money. Each claim has two options -- a fixed amount that goes to a players hand, or a higher amount that goes towards a specific building. Some claims go to named buildings ($4 towards a boarding house), some go to buildings adjacent to named buildings ($7 next to the bordello) or to buildings adjacent to side streets (or starting buildings).

During each improvement phase, one more card is flipped up than players ... one of those will be the claim, and each player gets an improvement in hand. The player who selects the claim a) gets last pick of improvements and b) passes the start player to their left (becoming last player).

Each turn has two improvement phases, then all claims payoff. Finally, there are two building phases (done settler style ... first to last, last to first). During each building phase you can put down a new building, add an improvement to an existing building, or discard a card to get money equal to half it's value.

The game ends when there aren't enough improvements left to handle an investment phase. Then you total up the value of buildings and investments, get 1/2 VP for any money left over, and some bonus VP for building arrangements.

In theory, a lot to like:

• Tough, but not numerous, decisions -- Which card to take, which cards to pitch, When to make a claim. Any card pitched for money could become a claim, so you want to pitch cards that you wouldn't mind having as a claim, as well as keeping the right mix of suit cards. Also, the more cards pitched, the longer the game will last (although this is likely to only be a turn or so).
• Money (and scores) are usually tight.
• Its fast. 45 minutes or so.

That being said, there are several potential problems.

• Being start player to make a claim is great ... unless no claims come up that help you.
• Making the 2nd claim makes you last for the building phase ... which gives you two builds in a row. Since buildings score bonus VPs for adjacency, that means you can set up a good play (if you've got the money). Assuming a two (or four) player game, if the first player always takes a claim, then the same players will always get double builds.

But the big issue -- after each game, nobody knows why the winner won. I was paying attention after my 3rd game, and I think the winner got lucky with an extra claim, but I'm not sure. There's plenty of luck (you want a great claim to hit when you have first choice, etc), but nothing jumped out at me as "Oh, that's a winning play."

Now subtle is fine, and luck isn't bad, but combining them turns people off. I want to play this again (just to figure out what's going on, if nothing else), but the reception has been lukewarm. I'll try to get another play or two in, and report back.

But I do not think it is a great game.

Agricola joins a long list of games that I enjoy despite obvious flaws. I’m thinking of Age of Renaissance, 7 Ages (although my mood on that swings around), and the like. Still, I’d play those instead of great designs I don’t enjoy (Diplomacy, abstracts, etc).

I’m not going to describe mechanisms or details. Dale Yu has written more than enough to enlighten. Just to make things worse, I’m assuming you know the basics. To recap – I like Agricola. I’d play it again at the next game session (if I could). It will likely hit the table another 5-10 times at a minimum. Having gotten that out of the way, I’m going to focus on the negatives.

I’ve played several times now. How many? Well, that depends on how you count. I’ve played four games by any definition. Another four ‘to my satisfaction’, but I suspect most readers will only count one or two of those. “To my satisfaction” means (in this case) that everyone agreed on who would win if the game was played out. Most of these were quickly adjudicated between the first and second harvest.

One was called after the opening deal.

There is a whole class of games where the opening setup determines the likely winner. Card games. They have a few other characteristics (at least for good ones): 1) they are short, 2) you play many hands to reduce the luck (or determine the better player). Good players will win more than their ‘fair’ share of games, but won’t win every hand.

Agricola is a single deal card game that takes 90+ minutes to resolve.

I’ve seen arguments that the cards are individually balanced, and I generally agree (with at least one glaring exception). Some are better, but the range isn’t bad. But cards aren’t just assessed individually. Take Bridge. The Space Ace is worth one trick. The King values usually takes a trick. With the ace, a full trick (assuming no trump). Without it, it depends on where the ace was dealt, how many suited cards each hand has, etc. The deuce of clubs may be a full trick in some hands … if they have enough clubs, but usually it’s not that important.

Each of Agricola’s 350-ish cards adds a new twist on a rule. That makes 60,000 two card combinations that are much more complicated than the relationship between the King of Spades and deuce of Clubs. When you confine things to the E deck, I suspect most two card combinations have been seen. Are there three card combinations? Undoubtedly. Assuming 100 cards (for E decks only) there are 160,000 3-card combinations. You start with seven cards and seven occupations. Five hundred (or a thousand) games is enough to smooth all single cards, but doesn’t begin to assess the combinations … (and how many of those games involved new players)?

I could argue which cards I think are problematic (and I will, but not now). A fair response is that I (or others) missed a counter to that card. I may well have. But we’re still playing a card game. Now, the question is – how many routine hands do we have? For now, call a routine hand one that “Given reasonable and competent players, the ‘better’ hand will win barring mistakes.” You can have routine good hands and routine bad hands, it may be exciting to take 13 tricks with thirteen of one suit, and it’s rare, but it doesn’t require skill. Likewise, it takes little skill to lose all 13 tricks with a flat yarborough.

Apart from routine hands you can have routine games. In card games like bridge, one side has a bad hand the other one often has a good one. These routine hands lead to routine deals. Games where you deal a subset of the cards may see multiple players have very good (or bad) hands.

Race for the Galaxy, which I love, has routine games. I estimate roughly 3%. If you picked a number from 1-10%, I’d be fine with that. I’d argue if you went much higher (or lower). From my (admittedly small) sample of Agricola, I’d put its “routine game” percentage at 50-75%. My estimate may be high since every game I’ve played had new players. I think everyone will agree that this number exists above 10%, and that’s problematic for a game thats 4-8 times as long as Race. (Even if you discount routine ‘good’ hands, you’ll occasionally see a routine ‘bad’ hand, such as one that has no useful early minor improvements, which makes several of the actions much worse).

Only once have I been unsure of the winner after the second harvest, and it that game I had picked two people (out of five), who came in 1st and 2nd. I publicly predicted the winner of my second game (which we finished) during turn 3. He botched the endgame (never building a single fence, so earning -1 for enclosures and something like -5 for unused spaces) and won handily.

[Tangentially, this is why I stopped playing Cosmic Encounter for years … everyone wanted to play with 2+ power combinations. I now prefer playing with single powers, they are reasonably well balanced].

I hope scores will tighten as players get better, but the cards have a huge impact.

Agricola has other issues, as well. These aren’t nearly as important, but exist.

1. The ‘family increase’ mechanic (which moves you from two actions to three) is very important, and provides a positive feedback mechanism. Feeding does produce a negative feedback as well, but not nearly at the same effect. Assuming no occupations (and no player manages to get a 4th action before anyone gets a 3rd) then the last player to grow his family will miss out on 4 actions (in a five player game). That’s effectively giving the first person an extra full turn. This effect is so important that ignoring everything to focus on family growth seems to be a dominant strategy. Worse yet, growing your family is a strong source of victory points. If growing your family cost you resources, and earned actions but no victory points, it would be a more interesting tradeoff.
2. [1a, really] – The extra action from family growth is so powerful that the ‘family game’ (without cards) is simply an exercise in getting your home ready for your first child. With two players, even one extra turn seems dominant. [The family game is still a card game, but now the deal is the ordering of the rounds.]
3. Because of the card interaction and family growth issue, I suspect every 4+ player game will have at least one player ‘eliminated’ early on, with a score of roughly half (or less) of the winning score..
4. Livestock seem a much superior form of food & victory points than farming. Like family growth, this makes the best “resource” path also the best “victory points” path (since there are four categories for livestock, vs three for agriculture … and stables makes a fifth, arguably). You can delay your plowing until the very late game and still get good agricultural points, but you can’t put off breeding.
5. Turn order effects. When the start player is passing back and forth between you and another player, it really matters if you are sitting besides each other. Also, some cards improve certain spaces, and again order matters. Caylus’ “Inn” mechanism works much better than Agricola’s blunt “Start Player.”

The good news? Often the game conceals this from you. Most hands have something, and monstrously good hands may be hidden (until the end). There’s enough going on that even a good hand can be misplayed.

Agricola took several great ideas (a Caylus-like placement system, a Cosmic-like special power system, a complex resource management system) and then shoved them together. It’s enjoyable but, like most cross-breeds, an odd beast. I suspect that, like Age of Renaissance in particular, I'll eventually get annoyed playing around with all those fiddly pieces to decide a card game. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Update: I've also ported my review to BGG.

The board starts off with just a big starting piece. Your pawns move along the 'edges' (except for the trading post on the starting piece), and whenever you come to unexplored area you flip up some rhomboids (?) to build the world. If you create a triangle-gap, there are triangle tiles as well ... these are 'better.' (This image explains it better than I can).

You can carry some resources (6 spaces worth). You start with tools, food and lumber, which you spend to do certain actions. On your turn you get to move 1 space (two if you follow the river) and an action, in either order. The most basic action is panning for gold, which costs food. Mining for gold (in the mountains) also costs lumber, but you have to build the mine.

The tricky thing is that in may spots, you have to spend an action (and equipment) to prepare. For example, to get gold out of the mountains you have to make a mine. To get gold out of the plains, you need to divert a stream. But once the mine is made (stream diverted, etc) then anyone can use it. So if you build a mine, any prospector nearby will run up and grab some gold.

The resource management works reasonably well. You need food to pan for gold (presumably you are out there for a long time), lumber to get gold out of mines, tools are useful for building fish traps (to get food faster), sawmills (to get lumber faster) and necessary to start a mine. You can buy plenty of great things in the trading post, which makes nice chrome. Since you basically get a single move and action, turns can fly by (once the world is explored a bit). In fact, I don't think our game lasted 70 minutes, like the geek claimed.

The fact that you don't own mines (etc) is interesting, in that it makes all the players reclusive and paranoid. The game ends when someone gets enough gold chits (each chit worth 1-2 from a river, or 3-4 from a mountain) or when you've explored enough of the world then via a timer. (Each turn having 1/3rd of a chance to advance the timer, which takes roughly a dozen advances to end).

We ended via the timer, and this felt unsatisfying. As the timer ticked down, the game dynamics shift. The earlier game dealt with jumping claims and running away from others. Later on the pressure means you don't have time to isolate yourself. This creates tension (get too far away from anyone, and you can't collude in the end game, get too close and you'll wind up losing some of the gold you worked for). I was glad to see the game end promptly, but it felt contrary to the earlier spirit.

I'd certainly try it again, though, but I'm not desperate.

Strat-o-matic tries to simulate the prior season. So the '2007' regular season players and teams were just released about six weeks ago.

The core mechanism of Strat-o-matic is a simple 3d6. You have two colored dice, which are read as a pair. The single die determines the column. Three columns on the batter's card, three on the pitcher's. You roll the dice and look up the result.

Some results will direct you to make further rolls. Partially that's just to fine tune the cards, but some results send the ball towards a position player. For example, on each pitcher's card there are a two chances (out of 108 possible outcomes) for rolling a "Left Fielder" defensive check (an "X" chance). There are also 7 short stop checks. All told, about a quarter of the results on the pitchers card lead to defensive checks.

The players are mainly differentiated by how many good (and bad) results they have on their cards, and where they are located. A Homerun on a '7' is better than on a '2' or '12' obviously. But players also have ratings for bunting, hit and run, stealing, speed. Defensively, players have a range and an error rating (how many errors they would on pace to commit if they played a full season). Outfielders (and catchers) also have an arm rating for how hard they throw.

The offensive manager gets to decide when to bunt, steal, hit & run, stretch for an extra base (sometimes) or sub a player (pinch hit or pinch run). The defensive manager can hold a player on base (to decrease the chances of a steal), play the infield in (to stop the bunt) and sub pitchers. Really, that's it.

Strat comes has several levels of rules complexity. The basic game handles basic situations and teaches the rules. The advanced game adds more. The most important addition is that pitchers and batters have different charts depending on the handiness of the other side. These charts are usually identical, but one side is usually slightly better than another. The charts to handle defensive plays have a bit more variety. Pitcher fatigue is formalized a bit more, batters are given power ratings (weak batters some homeruns converted into deep singles).

The 'super-advanced' rules toss even more into the game. Park effects, wild pitches, playing just the corners in, bringing in the outfield to prevent a shallow sac fly, plays at the plate, robbing home runs (think ESPN highlight reels), 'clutch' hitting, good vs. bad leadoffs (for steals). But the biggest real change is that the defensive charts (The "X" chances mentioned above) have many more potential results, including rare plays.

In the opening series of the season, with runners on 1st and 3rd and one out, the home team sent a near-home run into left field. The runner on third tagged up and scored easily ... but the manager comes out on the field and argues, and the 3rd base umpire agrees that the runner left early! He's out!

Despite all of this, the rules aren't terribly complicated (although it helps to play some games before adding all the bells and whistles).

There are two downsides to strat. It is, as my wife calls it, Bunco for Boys. At the start of an inning there really isn't anything to do except roll the dice. Maybe someone will get on base, maybe not. The decisions start to come once there are baserunners (apart from pulling people). This leads to the second problem (for some people). Much like in real baseball, you'll likely lose 1/3rd of the games without ever really having a chance. You'll roll poorly, or your opponent will roll well, and that's that. On the other hand, you'll probably win a 1/3rd of your games too. Still, even if you play a game in 30 minutes (easily achievable, especially if you don't keep detailed statistics), that can be frustrating. After watching (Cy Young winning) C.C. Sabithia get chased before making his 10th out (after the exact same thing happened in the prior game), my opponent watched his potential comeback get smothered by the rare play described above.

The other frustration is that baseball is a game of percentages, and Strat-o-matic reflects that. If you are in a "hit and win, get an out and lose" situation and you have Nick Green (Batting .184 in 2006) at the plate and pull him for Barry Bonds (etc), that gives you a much better chance of getting a hit ... but sometimes Green would have hit and Bonds will miss. Such is baseball. A better manager will improve their odds, but these improvements aren't huge.

But, as an experience I find this amusing, and I've had good fun over the last two weeks preparing for the draft, drafting, hashing out potential trades (none of which have materialized) and playing the opening series. As I've said before, leagues can turn OK games into great fun. Now to take the Rock 'Orioles to the world series...

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.

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.

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 ...