The fourth annual ConTrail has come and gone, as big and as bold as ever. Twelve gamers, including five (Brian, Richard, Alex, Jeff and Brad) who actually rolled in on Friday night, made this the longest-running ConTrail in history. I like to see a new record set every year…

Many of the pictures included here are from others, namely Euhan. You can tell these by the little tool-tips you get when you ‘mouse-over’ - all pics that aren’t mine have an acknowledgement as to their owner.
The weather prevented games out on the balcony this time. We did get in a Power Grid session under cover out there, but lost one $electro to the wind before the game was through.
As always the surroundings are a great place to be, but the wallabies and roos still don’t let you get within 50 or 60 metres before hopping away. From the balcony we had decent views through autumnal ash trees that included the fog-covered escarpment on the other side of the river.
On Saturday night the air was clear of clouds, providing a vista of the milky part of the Milky Way - something you don’t get even in the outer suburbs of Sydney.
Once again Brian provided outstanding catering, foregoing a spot on Masterchef Australia to ensure a place at the games table instead. I’m tempted to record information about the games we played with the barbecue (ie., trying to get it lit), but that’s an experience I’d sooner forget even more readily than my performance in some of the other games I played.
The number of played games recorded for the 2-and-a-bit days is an enormous 41, although I participated in only 6 of those. I focused on the opportunity to play the rarely-played and epic-scale games. That’s great, because I’ve now got them out of my system for another good 12 months!
(Pat: I got in on 21 of the alleged [41] games, so was happy with my contribution to the team effort.)
Games for Friday night:
Dune: Jeff won on turn 3 as the Harkonnen, with Alex, Richard, Brad and Brian along for the ride.
Dune Express: Apparently a print-and-play that wasn’t worth the the trouble and our players gave up in disgust. Alex’s comment was simply “Do not play this…”.
Cutthroat Caverns: Brian: 15. Alex: 14. Brad: 11. Richard: 3. Jeff: 0 (died).
Midgard: Alex: 76. Jeff: 72. Richard: 70. Brian: 61. Brad: 57. (Has anyone else ever been tempted out of a sense of irreverence to pronounce this as “Mijjard”…?)
Cartagena: Brian: 1st. Brad, Jeff, Richard and Alex along for the ride.

The Saturday crowd gradually rolled in, giving way to a big day of games, including:
Vinci: Brian: 100. Jeff: 97. Richard: 95. Brad (who apparently let Brian win!): 92. Alex: 84.
Fairy Tale: Pat: 50. Alex: 39. Jeff: 32. Brian: 24.
San Juan: Richard: 50. Rick D: 38. Pat: 32. Brad: 16.

Power Grid (This is the one in which the $electro blew under the balcony floorboards!): 10 mins rules refresh and setup; 123 mins game time. A close game…
Results: Craig: 15 + $85. Jeff: 15 + $56. Paul: 15 + $3. Alex: 13 + $$. Brian: 10 + $$. 
Web of Power: 30 mins game time. Rick D: 69. Richard V: 62. Brad: 60.
Wizard: Jeff: 290. Brad: 280. Pat: 190. Richard V: 150. Rick D: 140.
Circus Flohcati: Brad: 45. Pat: 44. Richard: 39. Jeff: 30. Rick: 25.
Dominion: Pat: 32. Jeff G: 23. Craig: 21. Rick D: 19.
Where’s Bob’s Hat?: Pat: 138. Rick: 52. Craig: 19. Jeff G: 5.
Turn the Tide: Pat: 4. Jeff: 2. Alex: 0.
After the Flood: Alex: 129. Jeff: 101. Pat: 85. Here are some comments provided by Pat:
A solid and interesting game, although I feel it gets a too samey in the last hour - exaggerating, but you’re playing the same game 5 times with some variance between start positions depending on what resources you retain from the previous turn. I’m not a fan of the need to delay actions to meet the seemingly powerful need to go last into the resources boxes, which are crucial for the following turn. I like how the aggressor is rewarded with the armies, but this again seems to favour the late-player (especially when coupled with the resources to buy extra units).
The game makes me wonder about different strategies, but I’m not sure I want to play it again too quickly, given I feel I’ve played it 5 times in one play already.

Conquest of the Empire: Paul, Richard, Neil M., Brad, Jeff G. Rules and setup for about 1 hour. We played the first of four campaign seasons before taking a dinner break.
We followed through with the standard ConTrail ritual of dinner at the local club, which was even able to accommodate our vegetarians. I managed to get this shot of all ConTrail participants (minus your photographer). Some have their eyes on the TV watching the Cronulla Sharks getting smacked by St. George-Illawarra, in what potentially could have been the former’s last appearance in the NRL despite it being still only mid-season.
Back to the games, and Conquest of the Empire eventually came to a close after a total of 242 mins game time (ie., 4 hours), leaving me annoyed with myself for mis-reading the game turn indicator and denying myself a bunch of extra points that I planned for. In truth it probably would not have given me the game, but it would have made it closer. Congratulations to Richard for holding that one.
Final results: Richard (red): 170. Paul (purple): 155. Jeff G. (green): 150. Neil M (yellow): 120. Brad (black): 115. 
I then got to play the next iteration of my prototype - great to get two successive weeks of human playtesting to get the design moving in the right direction. The feedback from Brian, Richard and Brad was excellent and will help shape rules set #53…

Games played by others included:
Stone Age: According to Neil (thanks!), Alex won on 220-ish. Neil M. second on 199. Euhan 3rd on 180-ish. Also according to Neil, “…Euhan employed an interesting “let my people starve and eat wood and gold strategy” which didn’t quite pay off.”
Brass: Euhan: 121. Craig: 104 (and ahead on the tiebreak). Rick D: 104. Brian: 98.
Agricola: Craig: 37. Euhan: 34. Brian: 31. Rick: 26.
Who’s the Ass?: Rick 1st on 38, followed by Brian: 65; Euhan: 88; Al: 90; Pat: 103; and Craig: 133.

Vikings was played by Neil M., Craig, Euhan and Rick D., according to Neil M., although there is apparently some doubt, since Neil is getting old and his memory is starting to fail.
However, he does confidently remember the scores as being 58, 49, 39, 29, in the respective order of the names shown.
Then there was Rugby Mania: Pat: 19 defeated Alex: 12.
We ended the night at about 3:20am after 89 minutes of Tichu, originally planning for a 1000 point game, but settling for 500 points after 9 rounds on accepting Alex’s observation that we had gone well-past “stupid-o’clock”. Let the record show, however, that Alex and I were the first to cross the 500 point mark at round 7.
Final scores: Pat+Brad: 670. Paul+Alex: 330.
Sunday gradually got underway with Brian’s poached eggs on English muffins with cheese, ham and Bearnaise sauce wake-up breakfast, but it was the coffee that really got the brain working.
The first game on Sunday for me was Talisman, which I ventured into only because Alex had overlaid his own rules for combat encounters and various other features, to reduce some randomness and add some meaningful decision-making.
This definitely improved the game that I remember last playing probably 10-15 years ago. However, in the game end-stage unlikely dice rolls twice swept me out of the inner path and therefore out of any chance of a reasonable finish, reminding me that this was still Talisman (until Alex fixes that ridiculous rule too)!
The game was eventually won by Euhan after 130 mins (+ 15 mins rules & setup), just scraping out Alex and Brad.

Other Sunday results include:
Goa: Pat: 46. Jeff F: 36. Rick D: 31. Jeff G: 28.
Klunker: Neil M: 16. Richard V: 15. Craig: 14. Brian: 13.
Carcassonne: Craig: 45. Rick: 39. Neil M: 38. Jeff G: 36. Jeff F: 33.

Bison: The politically-correct would crucify us over this one. Using the feathers and headbands from Pow Wow may have added to the theme I suppose, but I mean, really…?
Results: Neil: 24. Craig: 21. Brian: 20. Richard: 17.

Princes of Florence: Jeff G: 61. Jeff F., Rick: 49. Craig: 47. Neil M: 45.
Die Sieben Siegel (lower is better): Richard: 5. Jeff: 20. Pat: 20.
Other games for which Pat has provided some results (in blue), are as follows:
Set: There’s never a winner, just losers.
Pandemic: Just losers, but heroic level losers.
Shazamm!: Too many winners and losers to name.
Cosmic Encounter: Randomness was the winner.
Airships: Dicing was the winner.
Notre Dame: No one hit 70, so mediocracy was the winner.
Race for the Galaxy: Jeff’s Federated States bonus card was the winner.
I’m glad we cleared that up.
Although in post-script, Neil M. adds that this was probably the same players as for Vikings (above), with Neil M. winning with the Galactic Federation “and a slew of technology cards…”
But, there was also a game of Ticket to Ride Switzerland in there too, somewhere. Played by Rick D., Neil M., and Jeff G. Final places were Rick first, Neil second, Jeff 3rd.
After lunch (see barbecue games above) I got to play a much anticipated session of Struggle of Empires. I’ve always been fascinated with this game, including Martin Wallace’s innovative alliance mechanism (which also appears in Conquest of the Empire).
However, controlling this and the flow of the game is excruciatingly difficult, and it has now beaten me enough times to lose its lustre with me. All power though to Alex, who crept across Europe while successfully strengthening his position in the German States, and finessing away unrest through government reforms.
On the other hand, my French could not avoid the unrelenting build-up of populace disquiet, and slid into revolution on the very last game round, which put them (me!) out of contention!
50 mins rules and setup; 180 mins game time.
Final results: Alex (United Provinces; orange): 68. Brad (Prussia; grey): 64. Brian (Russia; green): 60. Paul (France; blue): Revolution!! 0!


Thanks again to all for being a part of ConTrail 2009. Onwards now, to 2010..!
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