City of the Big Shoulders is a shareholding game. The best known shareholding game series is probably the 18XX games. I have never been comfortable with shareholding games because I feel there is a disjoint. You don't own a company. You own shares of a company. It is not your company. Of course, this is the whole point of shareholding games. So it's not a problem of the game mechanism. It's my personal preference. I am uncomfortable that I can't call this my company, and someone may manipulate me out of my own company, the company I founded! Companies are just tools for making money. You can and should destroy "your" company if it hurts your opponents more than you. In City of the Big Shoulders I think the chances of companies switching majority shareholder are small. Yes you can invest into your opponents' companies, and you can manipulate the share value through buying and selling shares, but mostly you are still managing the companies you founded, and generally you want them to do well. So compared to other shareholding games, City of the Big Shoulders doesn't make me anxious as much.
This game is very much like an entrepreneurship simulation. You are starting companies, attracting investors, recruiting employees, buying raw materials, producing goods, and selling them. This sounds like work! This is running a business. I like declaring dividends, because as the majority shareholder of my companies (ok, "my" companies) I earn the most. As you can see I can't quite get away from the "my" company mindset. I probably should explore alternative strategies like intentionally damaging a company just to make others lose money too.
When investing in others' companies, you do have to survey the board situation. What product is it producing and how is the demand? Is there competition? Do the competitors have a stronger brand? You can get a sense of how well the company will do. Of course, it is still subject to whether the majority shareholder decides to take good care of the company. An older and better established company may not be more attractive than a young startup. The startup probably has cheaper shares and also more room for growth. In the end it is all about return on investment. You want to be the richest individual. It is not about owning the biggest companies.
I have played Pax Pamir several times now, but I am still not entirely sure I know how to play it properly. This time I did a three player game with Han and Jon. Both Jon and I decided to support the Russians. Han supported the British. This became a tough game for Han because it was two vs one.
I got into an awkward situation. I did not plan my card purchases well, and got stuck with a maximum tableau size of three for most of the game. I had a huge hand size though. Unfortunately that wasn't very helpful. I worked hard on playing my discs. Discs represent player influence. Many of my discs were on player cards, both mine and my opponents', as spies. I had three discs used for marking gifts purchased. This was a huge sum invested. I was a little stuck. If I were to switch allegiance to another faction, I would lose these three discs.
Russia was much stronger than Britain, and Jon's score and mine were soon much higher than Han's. So my main competitor was now Jon, technically an ally. I did not have much influence on the game board itself. I did have many spies, and I could do assassinations and dirty work like that. While holding the lead in the number of discs deployed, I triggered a dominance check to initiate scoring. This gave me more points than Jon, putting me 4 points ahead. That allowed me to win the game. At that point I had no discs at all on the game board. I did not control any region.
This was the end of our game. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure I know how to play the game. I feel most of the time you have to analyse what cards are available in the market and you just make the most out of the situation. It is about surviving the chaos and grabbing opportunities that come along. You can't do much deliberate planning.
I have a physical copy of Russian Railroads. It was a birthday present from my wife. This is a worker placement game and a development game. In this particular game, my main strategy was to develop the main Trans-Siberian railway, to upgrade the tracks and to score points from that. I completely abandoned industrialisation (the purple track at the bottom).
Jon's player board
Han's player board
I'd say Russian Railroads is yet another typical heavy Eurogame. There is a lot you can do, but you have to choose to focus on only a few areas so that you can score points efficiently. I often complain about these heavy Eurogames being of a similar mould, but I enjoy Russian Railroads. It is familiar and comfortable. I also like it because of the theme and the art. The game mechanism is a little different from other Eurogames. Hey, at least you don't have the resource collection and contract fulfilment. But yes, you do have the track progression thing. I like the development game element. I guess it is human nature to be happy when you make progress and you build something that makes you proud.
It is nice to play Tokaido on BoardGameArena.com. This is a very pretty game. I've never found the game mechanism particularly captivating, but I must say it is a beautiful game.
On BGA all the cards you collect are laid out neatly. Those panorama cards which form a picture look fantastic. They make you want to complete the picture.
I played with the expansion too. In the top row above, those sakura (cherry blossom) trees are from the expansion, and the bathhouses on the right too. When you visit a scenery area, instead of taking a scenery card of the corresponding type, you can choose to take a sakura tree. When collecting scenery cards, the earlier ones aren't worth much. It is the later ones which will be worth a lot. So if you have no intention of collecting cards for a particular scenery type, it is probably better to just take a sakura tree, because it gives 2 points and 1 money. It's nice to have a choice. You feel you have a bit more control. However I don't find this expansion very important. It's just a nice-to-have. In fact I think it is good that sometimes you are forced to take a low value scenery card because you want to deny your opponent. I like games which give you decision angst, and not games which treat you with kiddie gloves.
Bathhouses are also a new choice you get. When you visit an onsen (hot spring), normally the onsen card you draw will be either 2 or 3 points. If you are willing to pay 1 money, you take a bathhouse card instead, which is a guaranteed 4 points.
I played Barrage online. I have played a physical copy before. I did not do a proper rule revision before playing online. I relied on my not-that-great memory of the game. That meant a fair bit of stumbling around. This is a complex game, and stumbling around means you won't do very well.
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