"The economy of Atlantis is incredibly tight, so much so that it is very likely that at least one of the railroads won't survive..."
That, my friends, is a setup. Or, as Mike would later adamantly state, it is a promise. There will be blood. And, I'll be up front here, I truly believed that the railroad that wouldn't survive would be mine.
On to the report.
Atlantis is an expansion for Age of Steam for 3 to 6 players. The changes to the game are very subtle and easy to learn. First, there is no goods growth as we all know it. The only growth that will automatically occur is the placement of a random cube per person onto Atlantis (the huge center hex) at the end of each turn. If a player chooses the production action, she is allowed to place two random cubes onto any city on the board (except for Atlantis).
Second, Atlantis is a colorless city that grows cubes but doesn't accept them. You are allowed to ship cubes through Atlantis.
You are allowed to build 4 track per turn (HA!!!), and the engineer action cuts your shipping costs in half (rounded up).
The map also features a number of the ferry type links that a player can build by paying the cost in the circle and dropping their disc into the allocated space.
I want to note that the map is very pretty. The geography of Atlantis is interesting and despite the brutal nature of the map, it was fun to take in throughout the game.
Let's get onto the game. I played Red, Mike was Purple, Dan was Green, and Jim was Yellow.
Here is a picture of the board at the start of the game:
I really didn't know where I wanted to go on this map. I knew that Atlantis would be a vital connection for late game shipments, but I was frightened by the huge number of mountains (costly builds) surrounding this cube generating city.
On the first turn, I ended up taking out 4 shares (!) and took the 1st build action. Here was my plan. I wanted to build and lock in the costly ferry builds in the upper right corner of the board. I figured that I could later connect to Atlantis with some beautiful 6 link shipments.
Here is a picture of the board at the end of the first turn:
And that is what I did. It was incredibly expensive and really kind of dumb. To be at 6 shares on the second turn is not a cost effective way to run a railroad company. Mike took an interesting alternative approach and built right out of Atlantis. Dan started rocking my yellow cities, and Jim built south out of Atlantis.
My plan was basically set into motion at this point, but I still had some options on where to go from here. I ended up building further south to get to the red cities in the lower portion of the board. I figured that I could connect to Atlantis later. This was a mistake.
I ended up not having much money for building on this turn. I don't remember what happened. But those shares kept rising and shipments were not working out. I did recognize the need to connect the two red cities for a cheap $3, and I managed to luckily pull that one off when Jim ran out of cash. But things just weren't looking that good for me. I thought that Mike had the game in the bag at this point. He was connected to Atlantis, and he had the whole left side of the board to himself.
Here is the board at the end of the third turn:
I believe that I came close to maxing out on shares around this turn. But I did succeed in connecting the network that I would have for pretty much the rest of the game. Mike continued to rock the left side of the board, but he really didn't spend much time upping his locomotive level. I cannot stress how important this is. Getting your train maxed out as early as possible is key to winning games. Even if you don't have a great network, the 6 link train gives you options that you wouldn't otherwise have.
Here is the board at the end of the fourth turn:
As you can see, things were getting pretty boring for Red. It was at this point that I thought I was done. I was able to grab production, and this game me some shipments, but how could I honestly expect to stay in the game with connections to cities that didn't produce goods and 15 shares. Mike continued his expansion, Jim did the same, and Dan started his sneaky comeback.
On to the 5th turn.
My memory is failing me now. Part of the reason is that, at this point, I had decided that I was done for. I didn't want to write a session report but I continued to take pictures due to the urging of everyone else. I did manage to build a cheap link between the blue and yellow cities, but that was it. My game had clearly stalled out.
But it also seemed that everyone else's games were also stalling. I kept drawing yellow cubes to refill Atlantis, and this basically shut down nice shipments for everyone. And that is sort of the story of the rest of the game. Yellow cubes kept hitting the table and Jim and Mike had nothing to ship.
Here is the 6th turn board:
And the board at the end of the game:
And Mike halfway through the game:
I need to stress that Dan continued to play awesomely throughout the game. I think that both of us thought that we were out of it. We all thought that Mike was going to run away with the game. But Dan stayed in it, and, he ended up winning! Congratulations. Well played.
Here are the scores at the end of the game:
Dan (Green) = (26-15)*3 = 33 + 24 (Track) = 57
Brad (Red) = (26-15)*3 = 33 + 12 = 45
Jim (Yellow) = (23-15)*3 = 24 + 16 = 40
Mike (Purple) = (13-15)*3 = -6 + 18 = 12
And I cannot believe that I came in second. That's nuts.
My thoughts? It's a tight and crazy map. You have to watch your income and you need to plan ahead, or you could easily go bankrupt on this map.
But I like it. It's well thought out and Atlantis is big enough for everyone. There are alternate paths to victory. The map is varied enough that I believe that different strategies could be followed. The rules changes are easy to take in, and most players could easily have this map up and running in no time.
So far, the Essen 2010 expansion set from Ted Alspach is a hit and well worth the purchase price.
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