Tuesday 26th July - Stephensons Rocket

Stephensons 4
Originally uploaded by coljen.

Met at my place this week, only three of us arrived as Richard cried off at the last minute. We had a committee meeting and chose Stephensons Rocket for tonights game. That suited me OK. I bought this game at Essen 2003 from a second hand stall. Out of print at the time it was shrink-wrapped and on sale for the princely sum of €10. What a bargain I thought and was well pleased with my purchase, well this is the first time I have played the game since I bought it and I enjoyed it a lot. Here is a brief description from the BGG:

In an surprisingly thematic offering, Herr Knizia expands his fleet of tile laying games with this game about colliding railroads in early 1800's England. There are seven different rail companies that players can expand. Each time you extend a rail, the other stockholders can veto your action, but it might cost them their shares. When two companies' rail touch, the railways merge to become one. The game is over when only one company remains or there are no rail tiles remaining, and the winner is the player who earned the most money over the course of the game.

Steve had played before and it showed, as Garry and I didn’t really know what we were doing until about half way through. With three players there is enough space on the board to get a fairly uninterrupted start. But Steve chose to muscle in on Garry right at the beginning and a tussle ensued for the next few turns which left me to pursue my own designs at the other end of the board. As usual with games by Renier Knizia there are loads things that you want to do but only limited actions available to you. As the game progresses and the board gets more track laid the decisions get more complex. And as lines merge and the companies get removed from the game the game end springs up on you quite quickly. We actually finished the game by running out of track. I think the game is one of Knizia’s best and definitely want to play again. As you can see from the final scores Steve ran away with the win and Garry and I very close together for second and third.

Final Scores
Steve 91,000 Colin 59,000 Garry 57,00