This week we finally got back to our Thanksgiving Rails of New England game. We were about halfway through when we stopped last time.
Mike and Owen quickly became the kings of the Depression. Whenever the economic indicator turned to Depression, they earned tons of cash. I wasn’t doing too badly, but my big money came during times of Prosperity. Unfortunately so did Mike’s. But back on the fortunately-side,  we had several Prosperity turns in a row just before the game ended.
Ben did pause the game a few times to let us know about a rule or two he had forgotten to mention. One such rule was explained to us on the very last turn of the game! And this rule we would have probably been used throughout the entire game! Oh well.
Owen and Ben, mostly Owen, were hit by a few events that cost them revenue. One turn it cost poor Owen $40. That doesn’t sound like much, but that was probably more than half his earnings that round. Neither Mike nor I were affected by events the entire game. (Go us!)
It became clear as the turns quickly dwindled that you had to be careful what you spent money on. You wanted actions that would give you a positive cash flow by the end of the game. This was made slightly more difficult because the game could end at any time certain conditions were met. This could cause the game to end sooner that you might have planned for.
At the end of our game, it was hard to tell who was in the lead. Unfortunately for Ben it wasn’t too hard to tell who wasn’t in the lead. I wanted the game to end before we hit another Depression turn where Mike and Owen would earn big money. Mike almost ended the game for me which would have cost him money, yet gain him very little. (I would have been very happy.) He came to his senses though and let me end the game—which cost me a little money to do, but I had to do it. Darn Depression.
Here’s what our scores looked like at the end of the game.
| Â |
Mike |
Steve |
Owen |
Ben |
| Property |
85 |
113 |
92 |
99 |
| Cash |
210 |
222 |
242 |
73 |
| Depots |
48 |
51 |
48 |
60 |
| Bonuses |
35 |
40 |
0 |
25 |
| Loans |
-20 |
-20 |
0 |
-20 |
| Total |
358 |
406 |
382 |
237 |
We determined two things from the score. 1) Ben over bought on depots, thus costing him money. 2) Never, Ever, take out a loan!! We didn’t learn of the -20 penalty until Ben enlightened us during scoring. Ben strikes again!
I think if Owen had not run into some hard times with the events, he would have been the hands down winner. As it was, he still did well, coming in second.
Chaos Steve