Game 130: Empire Builder

 

I suggested we play this game today.  I know it to have been one of David's favorites back in the day.  It's one we used to play ALL THE TIME in the early years of our marriage.  Today is our anniversary, so I though this would be a particularly good choice.  We had also planned to make a nice dinner together and then to go out to a movie (A Quiet Place Part 2).  What I forgot is that this game can take nearly 4 hours, and it did!  No movie tonight, and I think dinner will be ready at about 9pm!  It is a good game.  It is mostly based on strategy, but there are a couple of elements that bring luck into the picture.  Though it is a good game, both of us ran into some pretty disappointing roadblocks today.  That's one thing when you're playing for half an hour, but when you're playing for nearly 4 hours, that kind of impacts the mood.  It can't always have been this frustrating, as, if it had, I don't think we would have made it to 34 years of marriage!  I'm just going to post pictures for now and put up further explanation later.  I've spend enough time on this game today.  (But it is good, and we will play again  .  .  .  someday  .  .  .)

OK, 9 days later I am ready to write more.  I think the problem when we played it is that we had a very full day planned for that special date, so we felt rushed and stressed as we played.  And that time pressure didn't help us deal well with those "roadblocks" that came up during play.  For example, I ended up having to skip my turn 5 times in a row because I had cards that were completely unplayable, and I had no money to buy new rails in order to make them playable.  I don't remember anything like that ever having happened previously.  David had a similarly frustrating situation for a while.  It seems we just had some bad luck this time around, and we didn't plan well in terms of when to play this lengthy game -- so it isn't an issue with the game but rather a weird combination of things on that day.
The game is played on a map of the US and Canada (other versions are available).  The object is to create a railroad empire that spans at least 5 "major cities" and to earn $250,000,000.  There are three sizes of cities: major, medium, and small.  Commodities are available for pick-up at almost every city for delivery to other cities.  Each player starts with three "demand cards" and an "initial investment" of $40,000,000.  The first two turns for each player consist only of building track (so that you've got something for your trains to run on).  Then you get your trains going and start picking up and dropping off commodities in order to earn more money so you can build more track, upgrade your trains, and win the game!  The picture below is of David in deep strategy mode, having received those first three "demand cards."
Here are my first three demand cards:
Here is our board early-on in the game.  I'm green; David is blue.  It looks like I'm heading to Omaha to get oats for Buffalo (see cards above).
A bigger view a little later in the game:
Below is what my space looked like somewhat more than halfway through the game.  I had upgraded my train twice so I had a Super Freight, which allowed me to move 12 spaces (instead of the initial 9) and could haul 3 loads at a time (instead of the initial 2).  Upgrading a train costs $20,000,000, which is also the limit on how much a player can spend per turn.  You can see our discard pile, which consists not only of used "demand cards" but also of "event cards."  Events are such things as rivers flooding, hurricanes sweeping through, teamsters striking, etc.    Such events can wash out sections of track that then need to be rebuilt, can cause trains to move at half speed, keep you from being able to pick up loads at specific cities, etc.
This may be the only time I've played this game and not built into San Francisco.  Sugar is a rare commodity that can be picked up only in San Francisco, and I like to transport sugar back east given what I'm paid for doing so!  But it takes a lot of money to build out that far and takes a lot of time to go back and forth across the country.  As I've mentioned multiple times above, it is a good game; next time we play it we'll just need to make sure we have enough time to relax and enjoy it and to give it the time that it needs.

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