CHIPPENHAM BOARDGAMES CLUB – 23/08/2012

1.       13 players tonight so 3 tables were in play. On Table 1 Jerry led a group of 4 in “SETTLERS OF THE STONE AGE”, a game which was last played on 21/06/2012 so is not reviewed here. All the players enjoyed this version of Settlers but as Jerry knows it well, and started with an early lead, he was never headed. Final scores were Jerry 10; Lucy 4; Roger 4; Poppy 3.

2.       Table 2 saw Mike leading a 4-player game of “UNION PACIFIC”, which he brought because he know that Paul was bringing along 2 11-y-o-boys, his son Matthew and his friend Will, and Mike thought they would like it. The game is about expanding any of the 10 railway companies in the game and acquiring shares in those companies, from which you will gain dividends, and it is the player with the most money after the end of the 4^th scoring round who is the winner. The game is driven by 2 packs of cards, Track cards and Shares cards, the first of which denotes a track type and players choose from 4 cards in their hand to do either a) extend the network of any railway or b) to lay down shares in companies in readiness for scoring. If they extend the network they can take a share card from either any of the 4 face-up cards or from the blind pack. They will be trying to gain sufficient cards in a company so that when they do the other option of laying down shares they will gain overall control of that company, which will yield more money. As nobody ‘controls’ the track building in a turn players can extend the line of a company they do control to make it worth more.  The 4 scoring cards are shuffled into this share deck at the start of the game so players do NOT know when scoring is going to occur.  When it does, the length of each of the 10 companies is determined and that is the amount of money that goes to the major shareholder at that time. The second share holder receives half, and there are rules for tied holdings. So 4 times in the game the players receive income so they are working towards extending lines they control, or trying to obtain shares in other companies with a view to taking over control of them from other players. There is one other way of scoring, this being the shares in the eponymous Union Pacific. These can only be acquired by secretly swapping a share of a named company for a UP share. At every scoring round the dividend for UP shares is allocated and this rises throughout the game to denote its increasing importance within US railroading. All the scoring rounds were close with very little difference between the players. However Paul was building up a good supply of UP shares which he declared in time to gain $20 million for being the major shareholder in the last round. The final scores were extremely close, these being Paul 138; Will 137; Matthew 136; Mike 134. All players enjoyed it, with newcomer Will requesting that he come again next week and play the game once more.

3.       Table 3 saw 5 of the ‘heavies’ in the club playing “CYLADES”, a beautifully-produced game in which players are trying to gain the favour of one of the 5 gods each turn in order to get the resources they provide towards the building of a metropolis in the Greek Island. However only 1 player can have the favour of each God per turn so in a mechanism similar to Amun-Re there is a lot of bidding, counter-bidding, fighting etc to determine who gets what. This generated much laughter amongst the players. In the final rounds Tony was able to outbid several opponents due to his accumulated wealth, sufficient enough to gain the last piece of the 4 tiles needed to build a metropolis and to win the game. All 5 players stated how much they enjoyed the game.  

4.       Whilst the other 2 tables were involved in long games Table 1 had completed their second game, this time “SMALL WORLD”, a particular favourites of Jerry’s, for which he owns numerous expansions. However our reporter states that in the last round the Were-Pixies ran amok to beat the Maurauding Elves and the Alchemist Gypsies and gain Lucy a victory. Final scores were Lucy 124; Jerry 116; Roger 97.

Games played and Winners were:

Settlers of the Stone Age – Jerry Jabelman;

Union Pacific – Paul Bulpin;

Cyclades – Tony Simons;

Small World – Lucy Newbury.