It's been a long time now since we got together for some traingaming, but this saturday we got four people together at our regular gaming spot, Café Chaos. The planned fifth member could not make it due to an emergency in his apartment involving water and roofing. I told Tor, the organiser, to get 6 people the next time in order to have headroom for contingencies. Well, not that it is too important, 1870 makes a mighty fine four-player game, as we experienced this day.
The players, in priority order:
(1) Tor. Owns all the games and organise. Has a tendency of pulling the 1-chit.
(2) Are-Harald. Yours Truly.
(3) Tor Ivar The Faceless as can (not) be seen on the pictures that will eventually come online.
(4) Jonar. Rookie with only 4 18xx-games on his track prior to this one.
Pictures: Slideshow gallery or just start here and then browse forward.
Privates:All bids +5/minimum.
Tor(1) Frisco
Me(2) bridge
Tor-Ivar(3) Frisco
Jonar(4) gulf
Tor(1) cattle
Me(2) - My evil plan from the start was to get the bridge and sit on it, wreaking the mississippi-dependant companies. I could now get the bridge for 45 if I bought the 20 private. Staring myself blind and being low on rutine I do just that.
bridge sells to ME!!
cattle sells to Tor(1)
gulf sells to Jonar(4
Frisco bidding war - Tor-Ivar(3) gets it for 200, then proceeds to buy the Katy private for 160. Oh noes! My fault, I didn't take responsibility, I should have foreseen this and bid on the Katy private. Katy private for 160 should not be allowed to happen in a 4-player game, and definetly not to a player in control of Frisco.
Stock Round 1:Jonar(4) has PD and starts GMO @ 72.
Tor(1) starts Katy @ 90. Starting Katy gives Tor-Ivar(3) with the Frisco and Katy private even more value. Wise, Tor?
Me(2) - I realise I can outbuy Frisco from Tor-Ivar(3), correcting some of my bad play in the private company round, and start doing so.
Tor-Ivar(3) - goes to 30% in Frisco
Operating Round 1With control of Frisco, and sitting on Tor-Ivar's(3) right hand, I decide to sabotage the company and dump it back on him. I build crappy tiles and buy 4x2-trains.
Katy gets 1x2-train.
GMO gets 2x2-trains, 1x3-train and cash out the gulf private.
Stock Round 2:I dump the messed-up Frisco on Tor-Ivar(3)! More than mildly annoyed, he sell himself down to 20%. Jonar(4), full with cash from selling the gulf private to GMO, then buys himself up to get control of Frisco! Everyone is baffled, this was a lot of action within a short time frame. Should I have managed Frisco properly instead of sabotaging it and dumping it? Should Tor-Ivar(3) have given up control? Should Jonar(4) have bought it up? Frisco is abit messed up but he got a company with >$500 for less than $200.
Tor-Ivar(3) gets 4xKaty stocks.
I start Santa Fe @ 72.
Operating Round 2:Standard early-game builds and purchases. Santa Fe gets 2x3-trains. Katy runs with 1x2 and 1x3-trains. Frisco remains messed up, I guess for myself that Jonar(4) does not have the outine to get synergies from two companies but do not give advice since he seems to be incredibly well-off :-P Jonar(4) controls 7 trains - 4x2 in messed-up Frisco and 2x2 and 1x3 in GMO.
In a four-player game, the gulf private is very strong, since you can get it and still start GMO alone. With the port GMO can make a strong cash machine early in the game - as we saw here.
Stock Round 3:Tor-Ivar(3) dumps 4xKaty @ 110 and gets Illinois Central @ 82. Illinois starts close to the GMO hub. An unusual early startup in our games.
Tor(1) lets Katy redeem one stock and goes to 60% for himself. I have one Katy stock and the last one is in the open market.
Operating Round 3:Illinois cash out the Katy private, gets 1x3-train which leaves 1x3-train on the table. No more train purchases. Mississippi is blocked and I do the evil chuckle hugging the bridge private, while my Santa Fe and Tor's(1) Katy rush for our deep south destination.
Stock Round 4: Jonar(4) starts Burlington @ 72 for the money he got from the GMO cash machine.
Tor(1) redeems the Katy stock in the open market, and now controls 90% of Katy.
All stocks except three Frisco and two Burlington stocks in the initial offering are soaked up.
Operating Round 4:1x4-train on the table at the end of the first operating round. Mississippi stays closed, GMO and Illinois heads north along its east bank. Katy and Santa Fe get connection runs. Katy earns more with its 1x3 and 1x4-trains than Santa Fe with its 2x3-trains. And cattle, Katy has cattle.
Stock Round 5:Tor(1) starts Mopac @ 82.
Next is me. I can choose between Cotton, Texas and Southern. Cotton can be blocked with destructive play from Tor-Ivar(3) and Jonar(4), and fearing their vengeance I pick Southern and start it @ 82, planning to yellow it.
Tor-Ivar(3) starts Cotton @ 100.
Operating Round 5Santa Fe, moving second to only Katy, buys the bridge private, cross mississippi and tokenise the Illinois starting city, blocking GMO up to its corner. I feel evil and am happy with myself. Tor-Ivar(3) could have avoided this with more routine - but thinking he is ahead of me, I take advantage.
I feel like Tor's(1) evil henchman, and I see I lag behind him. Our companies are colocated and cooperate, but he earns more, has more stocks, and better trains. I do all the mischief like sabotaging Frisco, blocking the mississippi and placing a destructive (for the two other players) token.
4-trains are sold out, Santa Fe and Illinois (IIRC) get 5-trains.
Stock Round 6:Tor-Ivar(3) has PD and does not start!
Jonar(4) starts! Jonar(4) now has 4 companies - GMO, Burlington, a yellow Frisco and now also Texas. Jonar(4) have 2x3-trains and 2x4-trains between his three old companies.
All companies are now started, and the other players have two each:
Tor(1) with Katy and Mopac
Me with Santa Fe and Southern
Tor-Ivar(3) with Illinois and Cotton
Burlington is dumped down to 64 and is headed for yellowness. Jonar(4) ends up only owning 20% of it but noone dares buy it up since it has crap trains.
If I had started Southern @ 76 instead of 82 it would have been yellow by now, and I could have bought more stocks, but I'm so low on cash in wouldn't have mattered much. Tor(1) let Mopac, started at the same time as Southern, pay dividends. I feel very certain I will lose to him, and probably to the others too.
Operating Round 6:2x5 on the table.
Jonar(4) let Texas buy 2x5-trains! This was probably not a good idea - 5-trains doesn't last forever ...
Mopac half-dividends and gets the first 6-train.
Southern lost its single 3-train and buys the second 6-train.
I am just a little short on cash and sit.
Illinois gets connection run.
At the start of the second round, Katy 0-dividends and gets the last 6-train. Tor(1) thus gets 2x6-trains. A dream come through?
Tor-Ivar(3) empties Cotton for trains and let it buy the first 8-train.
Jonar(4) is starting to feel the pressure of advancement in train technology. (I *think* he got one 8-train.)
Round 3 sees Tor(1) get a 10-train. 2x6(in Katy) and 1x10(in Mopac in such short time? Well done, Tor!
Tor-Ivar(3) gets the last 10-train.
I stay put with my 6 and 5 trains and realise I probably have waited too long.
Stock Round 7:12-trains on the table. Train park is now:
Tor(1) has 2x6 and 1x10 for Katy and Mopac.
I have 1x5 and 1x6 for Santa Fe and Southern. I waited too long slash didn't make enough money at a crucial game stage.
Tor-Ivar(3) have 1x5, 1x8 and 1x10-train according to my notes.
Jonar(4) with his four companies have two permanent trains (8-trains), and will need to buy 2x12-trains if someone bursts the 5-train bubble.
I feel I am lagging behind and decide to play high-risk. I increase my ownership in GMO from 20 to 30 percent. GMO only holds 1x5-train, and a pile of cash which amount is unknown to me. GMO has a pretty high stock value, and my gamble is that Jonar(4) either will not dump it on me, or that he will not push for diesel if he does. Both conditions fail :-P
Jonar(4) dumps GMO on me, I buy all the GMO stock I can afford and feel convinced I will lose.
Operating Round 8:With Southern having piled up some cash becoming yellow, I end up having to sell only 1 stock in GMO to finance both 12-trains.
Jonar(4) buys his 12 train with company money only.
Stock Round 8:With three yellow companies, all remaining stocks (4xgmo and one Southern) are sold.
Operating Round 8:The tile network being very mature and we being short of time, we stop laying tracks and count earnings one time and multiply them by 3.
End game count:WINNER: Tor: Cash: 5671 Stock: 5896 Total: 11567
Tor-Ivar: Cash: 4668 Stock: 5588 Total: 10256
Me: Cash: 3998 Stock: 5675 Total: 9673
Jonar: Cash: 5130 Stock: 2896 Total: 8026
In retrospect: Jonar seemed to be doing very well for a long time. He had the GMO money machine, and controlled four companies. I believe his major mistake was buying two 5-trains. If he had waited and got a 6 instead, he could most likely have gotten the last permanent train without having to sell or dump stock. By dumping GMO, a high-value company on me, he lost vital stock value which sent him to the bottom of the end result rank.
Tor played very standard and conservatively. He did no mistakes and the margins went his way. He had common interests with me, and I played destructively messing up the others.
I would probably have done better if I had stuck to Frisco and run it properly. I had my eye on a different plan. Being non-adaptive doesn't work that well in 1870. BUT - sabotaging Frisco and dumping it, as well as hugging the bridge, and the destructive token lay - it was so much fun! Definetly worth trying, even if it didn't win the game - this time.
At the pub over the beer and whiskey much later in the evening I was the big hero having brought almost unprecedentet action into the game by doing my wild moves :-D Tor talked compassionately about his beautiful Katy company - he said it was so good it was worth jerking off to - controlling 90%, 2x6-trains, top earner, $400 value at endgame.
It was a very enjoyable and exciting game for everyone and we all agreed we need to play again pretty soon!
