Age of Steam Recap and Sunday Gaming

I'm now coming off of a gaming high. Yesterday was awesome. I played 2 Age of Steam maps (New York Subway and War in Iraq). I have the New York Subway Session Report posted, and the War in Iraq report will likely be posted tomorrow. We also played Automobile. I am still having a ton of fun playing this game. While I may still argue that Lokomotive Werks is a better game, simply because of its utter simplicity, Automobile, because of its much shorter and restrained (4x turns) playing time will be played much more often.

Today, I went to a games day with the Central PA Games Club and played Kingsburg and Race For the Galaxy. I was not impressed with either. I have played RtFg before, and I knew what I was getting into. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the game, it's just not for me.

But Kingsburg, jeez. The game took over 2 hours to play and it's based on DICE! I spent almost an entire year (the game is 5 years) trying to get enough troops to protect me at the end of the game from the incoming invasion and couldn't because of dice rolls. Then, because of a random card and a bad dice roll, I lost 5 points and came in second. Now, I could have built other buildings over the course of the game, but I tried to do what the dice dictated. So, I guess I am whining, but I really have no interested in a 2 hour dice game.