armtuk

So last night we played Euro-Rails again. I lost again. Sarah plays a mean game of rails apparently. I played by the book, nice and neat, not many extraneous routes, and I was pipped at the post. I suffered a derailment mid-game, and then right as I was about to win, at $248, I had a strike. I was 6 mileposts away from turning in a $33 load! Sarah won with $258, and I was left outside of Ruhr with a valuable load of fruit on my loco just inches away from the prize. Maybe I need to revisit my strategy a little. Having said that I didn't have the best cards that game, although neither did Sarah, so it was probably pretty even. I was surprised how well Sarah did building all the way to Naples. I guess it didn't help that I had to build down to Sarejevo and Belgrade, although those two places seemed to have paid of well with a $58 run to Seville for trees and some other runs with oil.

I've been playing with the computerized EB Player program too. It's a computerized version of Rails. The shareware version is good for 30 days, and comes with the original Empire Builder map, which is of the US only. I think their deck is a bit short though as it tells me it's wrapping around long before it should be necessary (I have this version of Empire Builder, and we've never made it through the whole deck). I haven't managed to beat the computer yet :(. I find myself playing too fast, and missing things. I've never been a patient person, but I need to be more thorough in my approach to this game in order to have any impact at Origins. I also need a good strategy for Empire Builder US.