After midnight, I finished the day, telling this story going backwards, when the ibuprofen started to blunt the effects of the coffee I had at Richard’s and the excitement of winning a new game there. I got home after a busy, for late Saturday night, crossing over Portland and Beverton in Air VW the Gray. I was still excited and knew sleep would not come soon. I got the figures out of the board game Unsettled, washed them (unpainted plastic models can have mold release powder and paint will not stick then), waited for them to dry, and sprayed them with white primer, which ran out. I would do the last coat of grey primer on Sunday morning. I read a Canadian crime/mystery book until I nodded off with the Kindle in my hands. I woke once, around 4ish, to prove hydration.
Before this, I arrived at Richard’s house in moderate traffic in Portland and slow going in Beaverton early at 5:30. I was teaching and bringing today’s board game, Age of Steam: Deluxe, and started to set it up so we could start the teach when everyone arrived. Saturday night, Richard, Laura, and James were playing with me.
Richard had watched a video and corrected a few mistakes I made, and we took some time to understand track placement cost and goods refilling. With the game running, we followed the flow (I had copied the summary from the back of the rule book with a summary for each of us), and soon started.
This is an 18xx game with more abstracted elements than you find in more detailed 18xx games. Richard thought it was a train game and not an 18xx game. 18xx games simulate running a railroad with track building, stock market elements, cash management, and technology management (very abstracted in this game). Unlike the longer 18xx, this game has a timer that ends the game. They are known to be mean or even cutthroat.
The victory points are based on your income level, track finished and connected, minus stock issues. There are other random goals and rewards in some train games, but to improve repeatability, there are multiple maps instead. This is an efficiency race, and I am good at those, if it does not include special goal cards–it does not.
I ran to a part of the ‘Rust Bucket‘ map of the USA, far from the easier East, where Laura and Richard settled. James joined me in the plains with less money and did not build out. Chris and later Laura struggled with cash management. The game drains away cash fast, which is something I warned about in the teach. We did a few take-backs to help James and Laura. I slowly built while Richard, on the dense East of the USA, could keep building. James and Richard spent too much, in my opinion, to get First Player, an auction in this game.
I built out and continued to move goods and raise income. I spent deeply on track and connected all I could without conflict. I moved goods and soon pulled ahead, and I could not be caught, as only James could impact my rails. He finally started connecting to the city I had connected to, and I found I had to move other goods as he took the easy one.
The game is harsh, but James and Laura liked it and want to play again. Richard liked it less. I thought it played well and was easy to understand once we got it going. The strategy was hard.
Before this, I was at the house and will not invest too many words on how I got the papers into folders and my accounts in order on Quicken. I had not finished 2024 and decided to just stuff it in a file and move on. I did punch and file much of 2025. I have moved back into my office, and now the paper blob is away, and I feel much more confident. I think some of the depression was from not having the paper Blob under control. I will remember that and keep to my discipline of filing weekly. It is easy to just let the paper and accounts pile up. I did not notice that it affected my mood.
I also found time to paint one figure, which seemed to brighten my mood even more. I enjoy painting, and the figures are for the extended version of the board game Pandemic, which was part of a Kickstarter from years ago–I am finally painting them. They are 25mm scale, making them a bit small, but they are still usable in other games. I mix freely with 25-32mm scale, but still love the 28mm Dungeons and Dragons scale for figures. I picked the terrorist, which is seldom used. I figure it will be the least used, and I can get back to practice with it. The terrorist is part of the extension to the original game. It creates a competition between the agent and the other players working cooperatively to stop the pandemic simulation, the original game is based on, and the bad actor.
While Pandemic gets little love from gamers now, it was my first entry into these new-style board games, and I still enjoy playing it. I gave away my original copy as we were not playing it. I bought a used copy and recently added the extensions. It is still a great game, and I like playing it with new players.
I also tried a new place for lunch in the nearby strip mall: Hansik Town. This is a Korean-style place, and I had the chicken and added some rice. It was delicious and I had leftovers for Sunday Night dinner.
I started the morning at about 7:30 and found the coffee. I had slept well and was ready for a productive day.
Thanks for reading.
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 