Cars, blank, and Trains

I had Jef and Mike over last night for gaming. Dan is on vacaction, but he will be back next week. I also have gaming tonight, so I am going to keep this session report brief. I need to save my words for the Age of Steam session report on the NE USA map that we will have a go at.

Automobile: This was my nickel game of Automobile. This week, I made sure that I started with the full $2000. (Two weeks ago I shorted myself $1000 by accident). And, surprise, I didn't have to take out any loans this game. Jef was new to the game, so Mike and I went over the rules and in about 20 minutes we had started up the game. Jef had some strategically oriented questions at the beginning of the game, and Mike and I had some comments, but honestly, I will not yet claim that I am any good at this one. Both Mike and Jef honed in on the Mid-Range factories at the start of the game, while I singularly topped out productive capactivies of a Low-Range car. With 3 factories and a parts factory, I was able to consistently churn out 14 cars and sell them with the help of "Howard" and my distributors. Later, I bought into a high-range factory and in the last turn, I purchased the first mid-range factory on the board. This was perhaps the most interesting of my moves. I figured that I could shut it down via a special action to avoid loss cubes, but the cheap price of the factor really made it attractive (in my mind). At the end, I won the game by a wide margin. We played the game in about 45 minutes and I think that we will try to pull this out again soon. I hope that Jef is able to make future Wednesday gaming sessions as he would be a good addition to the team. Perhaps we will also try Lokomotive Werks again soon.

Unpublished Prototype: I really can't mention anything about this new game. But, I am very pleased with the components! Yeppers, I am getting better and better at making bits. Come check them out sometime.

Vom Kap bis Cairo: We had time for a 30 minute game at the end of the night and I had recently read the rules again for this excellent train game/auction and filler. This is a card game from adlung and features a deck of cards depicting different terrain types. The purpose of the game is to build a railroad over 8 terrain cards. A round is divided into two phases. In the first phase, N cards (N=number of players) are revealed and players simultaneously bid X dollars. The player with the highest bid chooses one of the cards and places it in front of their locomotive. This card now represents a terrain type that they have to build over. Then the other players, in bid order, choose a card as well.

After players have their cards, they are given the opportunity to build over them. Starting with the player who bid the most, and then going in clockwise order, a card is revealed from the deck. The cards, in addition to showing a terrain type, also show some number of track icons on them. These icons help you to build over the terrain. For example, a mountain takes 8 track icons to build over. For any missing icons you can pay $10 to complete the build if you want. If you choose not to build, you turn over another card, add it to the previous one, and the next player has the same choice. This continues until someone builds and then those cards are discarded. Once a player reaches the end of their current track (the card they bought that round) the round ends and another round begins.

I am so glad that I lost my "fear" of auction games as they are some of my favorite games due to the high level of chatter and player interaction that they bring along with them. Vom Kap bis Cairo, because of the theme, the game length, and the easy rules, is one of my favorite auction fillers. If you havn't tried this one out, I would suggest doing so.