Players: Allan, Anne, Janet, Joshua, Mike, Nazim, Scott
For this game of Eurorails, we reinstituted the rule that the winning player must connect at least six major cities. Mike maintains that this only had the effect of keeping players cash-poor early in the game, and that it made so little difference in the game that we should not play with it in the future. 'Course, he might be sore because he finished closer to me than to the winner this weak ;-)
Game was a bit more ruthless this time (competition of having seven players, no doubt). Allan built the short, inexpensive route from Milano to the Rhur and then cut off a line of Joshua's that was headed toward Marsailles (these two clashed on the way to Roma, too). Both Scott and Mike headed toward Spain right away, and Nazim repeated his route to Copenhagen (without using the ferry). Janet had some Madrid and some middle- European track, and Anne kept pretty much to the center of the board at first.
Scott, Allan, Mike and maybe Janet led early, with long runs for big cash, but Scott wilted on during the long trip from Copenhagen to Sevilla, and Mike seemed to run out of lucrative runs -- all of which left Allan alone in front for a long time. Joshua did okay by delivering goods as often as possible and by snatching cargo when other players tried to trade it; he was Allan's only challenger by the end. Somehow, Janet and Anne got bogged down in the middle-game (Anne had track going practically everywhere, but it didn't work out for her), and Nazim might have overbuilt the north east in an effort to find a faster route in and out of Copenhagen.
Allan won, with Joshua a close second ("only two turns away from the win" he claims -- maybe he's getting closer as a trend and not out of sheer luck) with Mike and Nazim (maybe $200 million) on the next tier, Scott at about $130 million and Anne and Janet riding in the caboose.
"I started out the game with my favorite opening move: The Milano Opening. It is not always possible to employ this opening -- the cards have to be favorable for it to work; and they were. Some people shy away from Milano, but under the right circumstances, it can be the foundation for a winning strategy. Once I had my opening moves set up, I focussed on always having a paying load on- board; two or more if possible. I feel it's more important to have smaller paying loads both ways than one lucrative load one way. On my last run, I made the trip over the English Channel with Tulips to London for a mere 9m, but once there, I was able to get 2 loads of hops and a load of Bauxite which all went to cities on my corridor to Milano -- for a total of over 90m and the win."
Scott's words to live by:
- Read the lessons from last week before you start the next game
- Find a way to make each run pay
- Do not be afraid to turn in your hand -- sometimes it's easier than delivering all those useless loads
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