Thursday session: Preußische Ostbahn
Yesterday's main game was Preußische Ostbahn. We had four players this time and I was the only one with previous experience. Hannu won the game, though, with amazing score of 649 -- I was second with 421!
This time I counted the turns taken. I started with a triple turn -- a modest start, indeed. That boosted me to a quick lead, which didn't last. More problematic was Tapani's start: he started with one cube in the cup, then two, then full four cubes in the cup for turns 3-8. 23 cubes, something like that? He got, what, two turns out of those 23 cubes. Talk about odds!
So, no surprise he was badly behind. This kind of bad luck could be fatal, but combined with inferior play from other players, Tapani wasn't far from second place -- he was just 21 points behind me and would've passed me with the next dividends. In the end I got 17 moves, Petri had 15 moves and both Hannu and Tapani had 8 moves. Hannu was without moves in the end, when it didn't hurt him at all.
The game developed in an interesting way. This was definitely the longest game so far, more than 90 minutes I think and we had a total of 16 dividends (I haven't counted them before, but this feels like a lot). The western board was highly developed, while the eastern side wasn't developed at all. I have a feeling that the Preußische Ostbahn might be something of a timer -- especially if it develops slowly, the game will be longer.
Well, there's plenty to learn here, and plenty of interest to learn. Ostbahn is really fun to play, a top-notch game. Definitely one of the hottest games right now!
I tried Toppo with the correct rules and two players and it was better. Quite fun, actually. Simple, yet entertaining. However, I'd prefer if the game came in small Amigo box (I have a feeling it might fit), or had otherwise a smaller box.
We also played Container, but had to quit before the game was finished. Petri was very much winning the game, and I was likely last. Though -- Tapani had just murdered his game by taking two loans and running out of money with no containers whatsoever. He had a huge pile of containers in the island, so he might've done fairly well, depending on how long the game would've taken.
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Ostbahne was a really interesting experience and a must replay for me. If nothing else I want to know how I would manage if I actually had turns of my own too.
Interestingly enough I managed to repeat the not-having-actions in Container too, and this there was no luck involved.
I guess I played Container differently than others (had expected) by taking loans and refinancing to pay up old loans nearly every round. This way I kept a big turnover and managed to build four factories and 3-4 warehouses quite fast.
Naturally I was short on cash all the time, and just before we had to cut the game short, as Mikko described murdered, or suicided by taking max loans and bidding all my cash for about 50 point load of containers to my island.
This lead to the envitable end of my roustabout career. I couldn't pay for my loan interest, and thus started losing containers hand over fist.
Although at the time of my demise I had around 100-120 worth of containers delivered, I would probably have lost about 10-20 per additional round. There would probably have been enough rounds left to warrant me the fourth place and the all-time low score (-22 for having no containers and two loans).
However, it would have been possible for the game to end in 1-2 rounds, in which case I could still have placed decently.
Your strategy was pretty good, I think, and without this mistake it could've worked well. If you only had had a ship full of containers heading to the island to get you back in business... The two loan maximum is part of the problem, otherwise you could've taken another loan to pay the old ones. I wonder if the game would be broken by allowing more loans?
Your result would've been dependent on our goodwill - of course we should've delayed the end of the game until you're out of business. With the right actions, the game could've ended in just few turns.