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Two months have passed since our last boardgame-meeting took place. Since then there has been work, work, work and… let’s see… work. Oh, and then there were this crazy thing called “Christmas” as well… Time to get going again, so I proposed a meeting at my place this Saturday. Brother Jens and his fiancé Linda showed up, as did Tom from the neighboring town of Lohja.

Tom was first to show up, and as we waited for the others we managed to play a game of Crokinole, almost to completion. Crokinole is without competition the most played game in my collection (ok, so it’s without competition the most expensive as well, but who’s counting?) and the one game I’ll play any time, and with every session my appreciation for it grows even further.

The one “big” game we had decided on for the meet-up was Rails of Europe, the official but unlicensed expansion to Railroad Tycoon: the Boardgame. I really wanted to love RT:tB but it had some issues, the worst being it’s size. I could barely fit it on my table, leaving it sticking out on all edges, which meant there was a constant risk of game-stopping “earth-quakes“. Playing the full game we always skipped the operations cards as well, as they were always so far away that few people could read them. Skipping the cards meant the auctions were unnecessary, so we’d always skip those as well, and that’s already not playing half the game.

Not this time! I had bought Rails of Europe a long time ago, and was eager to give the game system another try – this time utilizing all rules. The board is smaller, although still big, but it fit snuggly on my tabletop, leaving a narrow strip of table for each player to store cash, shares and locomotive tiles. The map is more evenly laid out as well, no region really that much more valuable than the other. The rather poorly executed Western Link-system (personal opinion) from RR:tG has been changed to a handful of bonus “Major Lines”. A vast improvement as well!

I made some poor judgement calls early on, missing some good opportunities for valuable links, and had a difficult time recovering. I’m usually the one issuing the fewest shares but not this time. I was trailing, selling shares in desperation to catch up, but never got even close. I had a pretty good grip over northwestern Europe, controlling all links around France, but when I urbanized Bordeaux I drew all the wrong cubes and wasn’t really able to make good deliveries.

Jens, however, was on fire! He was in the lead, having also issued the very least shares. He was on a fast track to victory. Halfway through we noticed we had all forgotten about the Major Lines, we probably all secretly remembered them about the same time, but Jens and Tom were the ones who managed to take the best advantage of them. Towards the very end Tom sprinted away, taking the lead. As he had issued a lot of shares, however, I still thought Jens would  win in the end. Well, the game ended, and as we counted down the shares in the end (every issued share is a negative point at game-end) Tom did manage to claim the victory by a single point!

I can’t begin to say how much this is an improvement over Railroad Tycoon! Now I can again look forward to playing this game. With the base game, it was just too cumbersome. Laying all this track made us hungry, and after my macaroni casserole (improved with bacon) we were fueled up for more. Next, Tom had brought the old Ravensburger game Lotus. There’s not much to say about Lotus, except that it’s a nice, and quick filler. Every player has six pawns (at least in a four-player game) which you try to get through a track to the goal. First one to get all pawns through wins.

If more than one pawn occupy a space they stack on each other, later arrivals stacking on top. Only the pawn on top can move, and you always move as many spaces as there are pawns in the stack. A very smart and simple system that makes a nice game to play over after-dinner coffee.

Again Jens took an early lead and we were all sure he was going to win, but an early lead isn’t always good here, and Linda managed to pass us all and snatch the win. With coffee still in hand it was time for another light and fast game – 10 Days in Africa, a rummy-ish card-ish game where you try to organize your hand of tiles to get a sequence of countries in Africa. Being the only one of us who has spent any time over there I claimed victory when Jens unwillingly handed me Uganda.

At this point time was running out, we knew Toms father was on his way to collect him, so we continued with fast games. And he did show up, during the mid-game of Dominion. This game suffers a bit from the fact that there are “killer strategies”. But as long as it’s not played too often it’s quite fun. Jens and I tied for the victory here. I can’t remember the tie-breaker – is it money? Whatever it is, we forgot to count, and were quite pleased to call it even. A quick session of the speed stacking game Monumento (Make ‘n’ Break), won by Linda later and we called it a night.

It was good to game again, and I’m very happy that I might be able to play the great Railroad Tycoon-system again, now that there’s a version of the game that’s actually fun to play!