Boardgamecafe.net Meetup Report @ OTK Cheras 23/9/2011
By jack208
EXCERPT
First Friday meetup at the new OTK saw train games hitting the tables here and there with TICKET TO RIDE, RAILROAD TYCOON and 1889 SHIKOKU in play all in R1. Sid Sackson also had a good day with both his CAN’T STOP and ACQUIRE being brought to the tables. Other games seen were REPUBLIC OF ROME, HEY THAT’S MY FISH, TOK TOK WOODMAN, 20TH CENTURY, IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON, GLORY TO ROME, SPEICHERSTADT, NUNS ON THE RUN.
Gamers: John Choong, Kevin Tan, Dennis, Ho HD, Oon, Eric, Nurul, Amanda, Desmond, Thomas Soo, Seraphina Soo, Lawrence Wong, Victor, Hiew, Allen, Caleb, Ken, Joshua, Henry, Kareem, Ainul and CK Au.
Games: 20th Century, Hey That’s My Fish, Tok Tok Woodman, Railroad Tycoons, Ticket to Ride, Republic of Rome, Glory to Colorful Rome (just to be sure which edition we are playing, hehe), 1889, The Speicherstadt, Nuns on the Run, Acquire.
Location: OTK Cheras | Google Map | Lat-Long: N 03° 06.179′ E 101° 44.237′
Date/Time: 23 Sep 2011 (Fri) 8.00 PM – 4:00 AM
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FIRST OTK VISIT PROMO
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After a busy opening day gaming on Hari Malaysia last Friday (sessrep here), we hope to now settle into a regular Friday Meetup routine. For those who are new to us, Boardgamecafe.net host a regular Friday meetup (it’s free, we do not charge by the hour) from 8+ pm onwards till the wee hours of the following Saturday morning usually 4-5 am but don’t be surprised to find “zombified gamers” walking out of OTK at 7 am on certain Saturdays. 😛
Since many commented to me they did not manage to make last Friday’s opening day sales, we decided to roll out a First OTK Visit Promo where on your first visit to the new OTK (doesn’t matter when, it can be one month from now as long as it’s your first visit), you get 20% discount off ALL games you purchased on that day! Read more about this promo here. Now you’ve the perfect reason to make the trek to this legendary gaming place in faraway Cheras but where GREAT GAMES HAPPEN! 🙂
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20TH CENTURY
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A special shout to John Choong who made his first OTK visit and brought with him this nice Euro 20th CENTURY to be shared with the rest of our gamers – Hiew, Ainul, Dennis and Allen.
Gameboard for 20th Century which is not very inspiring but that’s how most Euro games are (eg Puerto Rico).
If you wish to know more about this game, read Hiew’s review/sessrep on 20th Century (click here).
Hiew sporting last year’s Boardgamecafe.net Terry Fox Run (sessrep for TFR 2010) t-shirt. We are taking part again this year – the event falling on Nov 13th. To join us, RSVP at this Facebook invite.
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HEY THAT’S MY FISH
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Kevin Tan making a return visit to new OTK – thanks for the support, bro – with his girlfriend and they did a few games, among them HEY THAT’S MY FISH. J
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RAILROAD TYCOON aka Railways of the World
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A game that would never have been played at Old Town Cafe (our former meetup place) as the gameboard is HUGE! But today, I decided to bring it back on for a group of newcomers to OTK – one of them being Amanda (below) from the Puchong BGN Weds meetup group (link to group here).
Thomas, Seraphina and Lawrence in Railroad Tycoon.
Oon (below) giving some hints to the RRT gamers…
Given the new edition Railways of the World has implemented some revised rules, at OTK we play Railroad Tycoon with house rules to maintain some consistency with Railways of the World
- Each player is given two Tycoon cards and to choose one
- All Major Lines are opened at start and allow any player to claim them
- Beside the three Start cards, two more cards per player are open at start – and subsequently one card per turn
- Player is allowed to issue shares to pay for immediate expenses only (and not in excess) – this is to mitigate the “Most Richest” Tycoon card
I also usually skip the Western Link part if the table is all new gamers.
RRT is a very beautiful game to bring to the table.. And I’m glad there’s now a table large enough to host this at the new OTK. J
If not mistaken, the purple line is Amanda’s network.
If you like this game, there are two other expansion maps – better suited to less than 5-6 players – available for this game.
Heard there’s new map expansion coming out for Railways of the World. Check our webstore announcement. 🙂
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TICKET TO RIDE
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On popular request from Nurul, an oldie fave was brought back to the table again.. TICKET TO RIDE.
Couple’s train game! J
This lady luvs choo-choo train….
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1889 SHIKOKU (JAPAN)
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You won’t be far too wrong to suggest tonite seems to be a Train Game Meetup, with Ticket to Ride and Railroad Tycoon hitting two tables and the (only for hardcore) 18xx on the (ahem) children’s table. 😛
Heng, Ang, Ho and Henry setting up 1889 Shikoku, Japan
Three companies started so one player (Ang) was playing as passive investor.
Money counting time… ie Stock Round
All 7 companies eventually floated. Since this is a 4-player game, it meant one player only controlled one company. Does this mean this player is disadvantaged since the other three would have two companies to his single?
The Iyo and Tosaden shares were dumped to raise cash for the new companies…
Track-laying in mid-game. Most avoided the expansive terrains in the middle… so the private company’s ability to lay tracks for free was not in use?
Heng’s two companies, his Kotoden was the first to acquire the 5-train.
Henry’s (aka Kiasu CEO) two companies; company treasury hidden. Move along, no peeking please. LOL
Ang’s been a passive investor till mid-game when he dumped Iyo (or Tosaden) to form Uwajima. He’s the player with only one company; how would he fare against his competitors’ two?
The FOUR contending to be the King Tycoon of Shikoku railways – Ang, Ho, Henry and Heng
Kan-cheong (excited) times close to end-game stage….
Shikoku Network at end of game
Current market value for all 7 companies at end of game.
Okie.. How did the players do?
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Name
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Last Div
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Cash
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Shares
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Total
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Ang
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1737
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1982
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2515
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6234
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Ho
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2034
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307
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3190
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5531
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Henry
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2262
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770
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2855
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5887
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Heng
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1590
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1713
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3310
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6613
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Ho’s low-cash was due to a FTP by Ang’s Uwojima picking up the 1st Diesel late in the game. I actually did not expect that (since it’s almost an end-run) but that was a very good move as it helped Ang to 1) hit Ho on the cashflow and 2) build up Uwojima’s run to be the highest at $53 EPS which contributed to his 2nd placing surpassing even Henry.
Heng did well to keep the others at bay even though his dividend earnings appeared to the lowest among all, and with both his companies being up there in the Stock Market, he’s assured of good returns from his stocks.
Both Ang & Heng seemed to have kept a lot of cash. Were they keeping lots of pillows at home? 😛
Interesting to note that Ang did quite well considering he has only one company vs the others’ two. This does dispel the myth you need to run two or more companies to win. I think it’s more important to run “profitable” company that generates high dividend yield at end-game than merely more companies than your competitors.
NOTE: Henry has an ongoing dispute as to whether a single-city route is “legal” and earns revenue. He wants to do three 2-train runs from one of the cities. The answer is “no” and further explanation given here in the forum. 😛
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IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON
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After their 20th Century game ended, Ainul went to do Glory to Rome (next topic) with Kareem and Nurul, while the remaining three decided to start a Stefan Feld game, IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON.
Dennis’ (below) hand in this game; stacking his temples full with people!
Allen (who did well by winning their first 20th Century above) missed a tempo here and lost a few key people at the wrong time. That hobbled him for the rest of the game. That’s how “unforgivable” this game can be which kinda reminds me of FACTORY MANAGER. L
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REPUBLIC OF ROME
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OTK finally had the chance to see this game hit the table – REPUBLIC OF ROME, another game in the similar mould as Diplomacy but with a rulebook that as thick as your Pre-U Chemical textbook, it does take some effort to play this. But Oon told me the rulebook looked more daunting that it is.
Oon taking the time to teach Desmond the intricacies of the game, while Eric (who already knew how to play since he’s from Oon’s gaming group) looked on.
Was told this game ended with Rome in bankruptcy….
It did not seem like a long game, perhaps becoz a 3-player session was played instead of the full complement of players. Anyway let’s see when we are ready to do our own ROME.
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GLORY TO ROME
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Elsewhere another ROME was in play among Kareem (who else), Ainul and Nurul… the popular card game GLORY TO ROME. The Colorful Edition. J
I kid you not. It’s really GLORY TO COLORFUL ROME. But the Black Box Kickstarter edition should be arriving… not too soon, in a few months time perhaps.
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CAN’T STOP
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After suffering embarrassing “defeat” at last week’s CAN’T STOP, Ken’s back to make amends as he took on not just Caleb but Joshua and Waiyan also!
He (Ken) was looking at another embarrassing defeat when waiyan took a commanding 2-peak lead (you need 3 to win) and everyone else had zero!
Surprisingly Ken managed to picked his climbers up for a dash to overtake waiyan to 3-peak! Wow!
But luck la, I think… hahaha
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THE SPEICHERSTADT
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The warehouse of Germany where the bidding will kill you, if not the fire will do the trick. 😛
Nurul sticking her tongue out at the firemen….
Interesting bidding mechanic, allowing lots of screwage!
Nurul’s burnt by “fire”… hehe.. That’s for sticking tongue out at firemen. 😉
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NUNS ON THE RUN
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Run novices, run. Kareem teaching a group of eager novices how to run from the abbess in the fun hidden movement game, NUNS ON THE RUN.
In this game, you are novices and you try to sneak about the grand abbey trying to fulfill your “secret wish” while taking care not to get caught by the abbess and prioress (above) who are controlled by a game master player (in this case, Kareem below).
Some of the careless novices are also invariably caught… the prioress catching one of them in the picture below (that’s Ken I think). Bad novice.
… but Nurul’s (red) novice ran silent, but ran fast… and was the first to complete her secret wish without being caught!
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LIFEBOAT
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.. Remained unplayed. But Kareem was reading the rules before they decided to go for Nuns on the Run instead. I suppose the Card King will get this game to the table soon.
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ACQUIRE
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This appeared to be a Sackson game night as two of his games were played… Can’t Stop (earlier) and ACQUIRE as the closing game for the day. Yup, we played with the AH-Hasbro 3D edition and did not bother to muck around with the filmsy cardboard-ish 50th Anniversary Edition, hehe.
A session of 6 players but I think all were new to ACQUIRE except perhaps for Caleb (left), with Desmond (middle) and Ken learning the Acquire ropes.
Joshua (left) and Ang, both also playing Acquire for the 1st time.
Desmond seemed to be enjoying the game, while Ken dozed off, “Merger games are boring la.. where’s my dice? I wanna do Can’t Stop”. It’s close to 3am when we started Acquire. J
Once all 7 corporations (below) get onto the board, you start to lose count who’s controlling which corporate! And the Fun begins! LOL.
As Henry pointed out, this session developed into an interesting end-game with four corporations remaining as “safe”.
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ADIOS TO ANOTHER NIGHT OF AWESOME GAMING!
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Crowd at OTK enjoying their Friday boardgaming fix! There are still things here and there we need to do up for the new OTK place but let’s not stop the gaming sessions for that!! See you all next Friday. 🙂
You might want to read Hiew’s write-up on his first visit to OTK – The New Old Town.
For more photos of this gaming session, visit our Facebook Album.
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Categories: 18xx, Meetup, Meetup Cheras
Boardgamecafe.net 
heng and ang have more cash because ho and henry got ftp! henry inflicted ftp on himself to get a diesel, apparently not a good idea, not enough time to generate returns
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Self-inflicted FTP? Oh man… he needs to stay off Scrabble for awhile. Think the stress of the alphabets getting to his head! LOL
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haha… self inflicted http://ftp…. sounds like when he said friedrice self-inflict hotsun. lol. we should really play again… but this sat is a working day… damn….
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