Game: New England
Players: Lewis Kornfeld
Eric Kornfeld
Vitas Povilaitis
Chris Lockheardt

At the latest SOG, four of us broke in Lewis's new
copy of New England (Age of Steam lost out again, much
to Vitas's dismay) while the other five suffered under
.chip's masterful masonry in Alhambra (a game that's
enjoyable to play but always leaves a "Did skill have
anything to do with that?" aftertaste in my mouth).

I didn't think I would like New England, it having a
reputation for dryness and requiring a skill with
pattern building, but it turns out to be a simple and
clever game. I especially like how there seems to be
multiple paths to victory.

After suffering through one of Vitas's patented "real
time" rules readings (it takes Vitas as long to read
through the rules outloud as it does to play the
actual game), we stepped out onto Plymouth Rock and
started looking for prime plots to build our
minimalls.

I pursued a "Build early and often" strategy, Vitas
and Eric pursued a "Pilgrim Whore" strategy, while
Lewis had a "Little Bit of Everything" strategy going,
collecting Barns, Pilgrims, and Ships.

I shot out to an early lead, building three 6-point
plots, two 3-point plots, and securing the lead in
barns. But I never had enough money to get first shot
at the goodies, so I couldn't defend myself against
the "Bash the Leader" tactics (Lewis made a
devastating move by placing a town tile on a spot that
completely blocked the town plot I was trying to
build).

Eric had enough money to make a run for victory at
the end, but I made him pay for bidding cheap in one
late round when I stole (at his dear dad's suggestion)
a 10-point Plot Card that he was in position to build.

Vitas with his Pilgrim army looked like he had the
game in hand, throwing money around like a Puritan
Rockefeller, but Lewis used his Barn to squirrel away
a 10-point Plot Card that he played in the last round
for the win.

In review, simple, clever, with seemingly multiple
paths to victory. A soggy thumbs up!

Chris

P.S. After reading some reviews on the Geek
afterwards, I realized we should have flipped through
the development cards beforehand to see what kind and
how many plot cards were available (there is not a
10-point card for each land type), but we will be sure
to do so next time.


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com