Ev'rythin's up to date in Canb'ra City
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go!
They went and built Eclipse expansion seven house-rules high,
About as high as house-rules orta grow.
Ev'rythin's like a dream in Canb'ra City,
It's better than a magic lantern show!
Y' c'n stroke your pet cat lightly on
Whenever you want some heat.
With ev'ry kind o' comfort
Ev'ry house is all complete.
You c'n walk to Mind Games(1) in the rain
And never wet your feet!
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go,
Chorus:
Yes sir!
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go!
(1) The new name of Mind Games is The Games Capital, but that would not have scanned.![]()
As discussed in a later post in my previous thread Sarah wins official "Power Grid" variant I twisted post-prandialist arms last Thursday night to introduce half-a-dozen official variants / unofficial modifications, jury-rigged due to having downloaded the RotA rules, but lacking the RotA bits-and-pieces. For convenience I repeat them here:
(a) Official "Power Grid" variant again,
(b) Official "7 Wonders" variant (second player to Pass decides whether next turn is clockwise or anti-clockwise),
(c) Unofficial addition of the blank Discovery tile to the counter mix, with the blank tile being the Jump Drive upgrade,
(d) Unofficial addition of the blank Technology tile as the Rare Technology of Point Defence (house-ruled to be present from the start),
(e) Semi-official face-down tiles rule (supposed to be used only in the 7- to 9-players game) which prevents annoying in-game hex adjustments,
(f) Unofficial additions of blank Reputation, Ambassador and Circle tiles as the Mining, Research and Trade developments.
The official (b) variant did not work as well as I had hoped. The principle of "path dependence" meant that most turns were anti-clockwise. Next time I might eschew the official (b) variant and instead pillage my The Scepter of Zavandor box for its six turn order markers (so instead of merely the first and second players to Pass gaining an advantage, all six players can gain a proportionate reward for judicious Passing).
And (d) was not particularly useful as one of my purchases, since my Point Defence was tissue paper against Star Bases which were packed to the rafters with Plasma Missiles (and also a Positron Computer).
As it happened only four volunteered for my jury-rigged RotA, so we kept things simple by avoiding the (e) face-down tiles. (The other five players could not avoid the shiny newness of Power Grid: Northern Europe/United Kingdom & Ireland.)
Winner of the initial Purple Pawn was successful Sarah, victor in the previous game, followed in clockwise order by Owen, Michael and myself. I chose Darth Vader (black), Michael was the Green Slime (green), Owen was Doctor Who (blue) and Sarah was Scrooge McDuck (red).
On the first action Scrooge used three-for-one trading of her moneybags to Research one extra influence disc.
{Boring descriptions deleted.}
Early on the Green Slime and Darth Vader exchanged diplomats, which was initially to our mutual advantage. As is often the case, the turning point came with the several battles for the Galactic Centre hex and the consequent broadening of possible enemies and possible diplomatic friends. Darth Vader was the conquerer of the GCDS. Since Darth had learnt from my previous debacles that fighting on two fronts was A Bad Thing, I suggested a diplomat exchange with Doctor Who so that the Death Star could exclusively concentrate on Scrooge McDuck. The Doctor hesitated. If he had rejected the ambassador exchange, then the Evil Empire would instead have attempted an ambassador exchange with McDuck to engage in a Time War.
So Doctor Who reluctantly exchanged ambassadors with Darth Vader. Thus to
prevent a runaway victory by the Sith Lord the Green Slime was forced to take the Traitor Card and attack the Galactic Centre with Plasma Missiles. But only the Green Star Bases had enough slots to effectively deploy missiles, thus the invading Green fleet was wiped out to the last spore of moss.
On the very last turn the Evil Empire assaulted the Ancient neutral world of Alderaan, thus Darth Vader finished with 40 victory points, just beating Doctor Who's score of 39 victory points.
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go!
They went and built Eclipse expansion seven house-rules high,
About as high as house-rules orta grow.
Ev'rythin's like a dream in Canb'ra City,
It's better than a magic lantern show!
Y' c'n stroke your pet cat lightly on
Whenever you want some heat.
With ev'ry kind o' comfort
Ev'ry house is all complete.
You c'n walk to Mind Games(1) in the rain
And never wet your feet!
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go,
Chorus:
Yes sir!
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go!
(1) The new name of Mind Games is The Games Capital, but that would not have scanned.
As discussed in a later post in my previous thread Sarah wins official "Power Grid" variant I twisted post-prandialist arms last Thursday night to introduce half-a-dozen official variants / unofficial modifications, jury-rigged due to having downloaded the RotA rules, but lacking the RotA bits-and-pieces. For convenience I repeat them here:
(a) Official "Power Grid" variant again,
(b) Official "7 Wonders" variant (second player to Pass decides whether next turn is clockwise or anti-clockwise),
(c) Unofficial addition of the blank Discovery tile to the counter mix, with the blank tile being the Jump Drive upgrade,
(d) Unofficial addition of the blank Technology tile as the Rare Technology of Point Defence (house-ruled to be present from the start),
(e) Semi-official face-down tiles rule (supposed to be used only in the 7- to 9-players game) which prevents annoying in-game hex adjustments,
(f) Unofficial additions of blank Reputation, Ambassador and Circle tiles as the Mining, Research and Trade developments.
The official (b) variant did not work as well as I had hoped. The principle of "path dependence" meant that most turns were anti-clockwise. Next time I might eschew the official (b) variant and instead pillage my The Scepter of Zavandor box for its six turn order markers (so instead of merely the first and second players to Pass gaining an advantage, all six players can gain a proportionate reward for judicious Passing).
And (d) was not particularly useful as one of my purchases, since my Point Defence was tissue paper against Star Bases which were packed to the rafters with Plasma Missiles (and also a Positron Computer).
As it happened only four volunteered for my jury-rigged RotA, so we kept things simple by avoiding the (e) face-down tiles. (The other five players could not avoid the shiny newness of Power Grid: Northern Europe/United Kingdom & Ireland.)
Winner of the initial Purple Pawn was successful Sarah, victor in the previous game, followed in clockwise order by Owen, Michael and myself. I chose Darth Vader (black), Michael was the Green Slime (green), Owen was Doctor Who (blue) and Sarah was Scrooge McDuck (red).
On the first action Scrooge used three-for-one trading of her moneybags to Research one extra influence disc.
{Boring descriptions deleted.}
Early on the Green Slime and Darth Vader exchanged diplomats, which was initially to our mutual advantage. As is often the case, the turning point came with the several battles for the Galactic Centre hex and the consequent broadening of possible enemies and possible diplomatic friends. Darth Vader was the conquerer of the GCDS. Since Darth had learnt from my previous debacles that fighting on two fronts was A Bad Thing, I suggested a diplomat exchange with Doctor Who so that the Death Star could exclusively concentrate on Scrooge McDuck. The Doctor hesitated. If he had rejected the ambassador exchange, then the Evil Empire would instead have attempted an ambassador exchange with McDuck to engage in a Time War.
So Doctor Who reluctantly exchanged ambassadors with Darth Vader. Thus to
prevent a runaway victory by the Sith Lord the Green Slime was forced to take the Traitor Card and attack the Galactic Centre with Plasma Missiles. But only the Green Star Bases had enough slots to effectively deploy missiles, thus the invading Green fleet was wiped out to the last spore of moss.
On the very last turn the Evil Empire assaulted the Ancient neutral world of Alderaan, thus Darth Vader finished with 40 victory points, just beating Doctor Who's score of 39 victory points.
