Age of Steam: The French Riviera

On 29 Aug 2020, I joined an Age of Steam session organised by boardgamecafe.net. Age of Steam is Martin Wallace's classic, a game about starting your own railway business, and trying to get to break even point before going bankrupt. There are many expansions for Age of Steam, and The French Riviera is one designed by Alban Viard. The map is the south eastern part of France, along the Mediterranean coast. We did a full 6-player game, which is not for the faint of heart. We had five experienced players and one new player, Sook Yan. 6-player games are scary because the competition is intense. If not managed well, you can go bankrupt. This is a game about borrowing money from shareholders to run your business. You need to pay dividends every round. You are effectively borrowing more money every round to cover interest payment, and for the new money borrowed, there is already interest to pay at the end of the same round. You are digging an ever deeper hole for yourself. 

Notice the lighter hexes along the coast. It is more difficult to build tracks here, because only the player with the Engineer role may build tracks on these hexes. There are many cities along the coast. They have goods to be delivered, and they accept deliveries, but unfortunately access to them is restricted and hotly contested. There are many towns inland, but towns don't produce goods to be delivered nor do they accept goods. They will need to be urbanised to becomes cities first. With 6 players, it is impossible for everyone to be making deliveries in the first round. Someone will have to go with no income increase. One player playing Engineer will be able to secure a delivery route to or from a coastal city. One player doing Urbanisation can create a new city and do delivery to it. The other four will need to fight for what's left, which is not a lot.  

The photo above was taken in Round 1. Sook Yan (blue) won the Engineer role, and built a track to the city at the bottom right. She also started a track from a red coastal city at the lower left. Dennis (red) did Urbanisation at the upper right, placing the blue city B. 

Heng (purple) was the long-term planner. He built many short tracks, which was the ideal way to play. The tracks themselves would score more points, and also you want deliveries to be done via many stops. The more stops there are, the more you earn. It is not about how far you go. Heng did not deliver goods in the first round. He planned ahead to start delivering in Round 2. I (green) started at the lower right. Jeff (black) started in the middle, blocking my way. Sook Yan (blue) also blocked me from expanding towards the centre. I was a little stuck and had to start a new track at the lower left. Tim (yellow) initially started in the middle. In Round 2 he won the Engineer role, and started new tracks at the bottom left. Dennis (red) continued to dominate the upper right. 

From left: Sook Yan, Tim, Jeff, Dennis, Heng. It's pandemic time, so it's face masks all the way. 

The veterans tended to be better concentrated, in order to plan for longer deliveries. Heng (purple) at the upper left, Tim (yellow) at the lower left and Dennis (red) at the upper right. Jeff (black) dominated the centre, which was a good thing because if many people had to borrow his tracks for east-west deliveries, he stood to gain much. I (green) was supposed to be a veteran, but my network was messy. I had two disjointed networks, and I was not quite able to set up any good long distance deliveries. Sook Yan's (blue) network was a little like mine - disjointed too. 

In a 6-player game, the bidding phase is tense. It determines turn order for the round. It decides who picks roles first, who builds tracks first, and who delivers goods first. Turn order is crucial. If you are behind, you may not get the role you desperately need, you may not be able to build where you want, and that lucrative goods cube you are planning to deliver may be snapped up by your opponent. When the bidding phase concludes, only 1st and 2nd place players pay their full bids. Everyone else only pays half, except the last player who pays nothing. Paying the full bid and paying just half is a huge difference. Sometimes you make a higher bid hoping to win 3rd place and thus pay only half. However you might "accidentally" win 2nd place and end up having to pay full price, which can be painful. 

One special power in the game is the passing power during bidding. It lets you sit out of the bidding just once. Normally when your turn comes, you must either bid a higher amount than the previous highest bidder, or drop out. If you drop out, you take the remaining lowest position. If you up your bid, you continue to compete and hope others drop out before your turn comes again. The passing power is handy because after you sit out for just once, you will likely see quite a few other people dropping out. So you can earn a decent position without spending a single cent. Usually this passing power doesn't sound too sexy. In a 6-player game though, it can save you a lot of money. Picking it is setting yourself up for a strong position in the next round. 

Sook Yan (blue) and my (green) positions on the board did not look so good. So when other players needed to borrow other people's tracks for delivering goods, they preferred to help either Sook Yan or me. It's always preferable to help the trailing players if you are forced to help someone. I benefited much from this. I hadn't realised that my tracks were that well positioned. Certainly when I built them, they did not seem like choke points. I think it was the goods production that created new opportunities for my tracks. When others helped me by giving me just a $1 increase in income, it didn't feel like much. However these gradually added up, and I found myself having a strong income. My delivery capacity grew slowly. Even towards game end I was only making 3-step and 4-step deliveries (max is 6-step). 

We started breaking even about 70% into the game, and I was among the first batch to achieve this. I quickly halted issuing shares, preferring to be frugal. Each share issued would cost me 3VP at game end, and I wanted to minimise this penalty. Eventually it was all the small boosts that others gave me which won me the game. I was surprised how things turned around for me. I didn't do so well in the early game, and had expected to come in 3rd or 4th at best. In a 6-player game, leeching off other people can be super effective! 

At game end, the board was almost full! We were scoring the tracks now and for ease of counting we removed the player discs once the corresponding tracks were scored.