Games Played: Union Pacific, Chinatown
Players: Mark, Josh, Chris, Lewis, Don, Chip
Thanks to Mark for hosting, and thanks to Lewis for providing transportation.
UNION PACIFIC (1:20 play, 0:10 setup)
Josh: 88
Lewis: 86
Chris: 83
Mark: 83
Don: 81
Chip: 67
After the last SOG at which I commented that I seemed to enjoy Alan Moon games, Ralph suggested that we play Union Pacific. So, I was looking forward to giving this game a try.
I liked some aspects of the game, but I can't say I was really impressed with it. Someone referred to it as "Acquire Light", which seems about right. I haven't decided how I feel about stock-acquisition games in general (having only played this and one game of Acquire), but if I wanted to play a stock game, I would choose Acquire over Union Pacific.
I may be selling the game short on one of its mechanics: that of strategically blocking in some of the train lines. This didn't seem to affect the game that much, but it may simply be that I was oblivious to other people's subtle planning.
It seemed to me that the Union Pacific stock was so crucial to winning (or at least not doing poorly), that there was really no choice but to acquire it while it was still available. I would think removing UP stock from the game altogether would not adversely affect the rest of the game. Of course, I could just be bitter because I was left out of the 4-way tie for first place (:
I also tried a strategy that I had previously considered for Acquire, that is, gather up as many different stocks as possible, in hopes of getting a lot of easy second-place positions. This game particularly rewards monopolies as you'll get both first and second place rewards. This extreme strategy didn't really work, since most of my single-stocks didn't yield any rewards.
I'd give this game a second chance, but I wasn't as impressed as I was hoping I would be.
CHINATOWN (1:20 play, about 10 setup)
Chris: 116,000
Josh: 113,000
Chip: 100,000
Mark: 92,000
Lewis: 85,000
I enjoyed this game. The freeform trading phase wasn't quite as chaotic as I expected, as it was pretty clear whom each player needed to trade with each turn.
One of the things that I particularly liked was the fact that it is possible to determine the value of the things that you're trading fairly easily, so you don't have to guess or rely on some vague instinct. At one point, Chris and I both controlled half of a 4-building "set". After an very one-sided offer ("Chris, I'll give you my half of this set in exchange for . . . all of your money."), he pointed out that we could figure out exactly what the value of the set would be over the rest of the game, and we should just split it down the middle. We came up with the figure of 24,000, he handed me 12,000, and I gave him the rest of the building.
Of course, I didn't consider the "economic event" bonuses. When one of them came up, he made an additional 4,000. I'd make a similar deal in the future, but I'd work harder to be one the side that keeps the set instead of cashing out.
Some people were a bit disappointed with the pace of the game (it seemed to peak at the middle and then slow down towards the end), but I have a feeling that it could have been attributed to the fact that we hadn't played before, and misjudged the tempo of the game. If this were an issue, however, one could simply reverse the card distribution order, giving out more cards at the end, rather then less.
I'd definitely play this game again.
posted by FlyingSheep @ 2:07 PM
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