Bradley Keen
United States
Harrisburg
Pennsylvania
www.punkzter.blogspot.com
It's a horse. On a chair.
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Okay, take a minute now to get in the zone. It's the '70s and YMCA is blasting out of the speakers in the disco. Suspended above the center of the dance floor is a glass ball, reflecting the light in a psychedelic montage of patterns on the two remaining dancers. Clad in whatever it was that disco dancers wore, they are rocking to the beat....when....all of a sudden Brad's red shag wagon plucks up a dancer from the floor and transports them to another disco! Then, along comes Jef's blue wagon and grabs the last dancer. As they pull away from the now quiet night club, devoid of dancers and energy that it once had, the nightclub suddenly bursts into flame! What the deuce? I offer only the following explanation for this seemingly pointless turn of events:
That's Disco Baby! Or, more to the point, that's Ted Alspach's interpretation of how Age of Steam would play with a Disco Theme. And by the way, Disco Inferno was the expansion map that Jef, Scott, and myself played last night. Next up, an overview of the rules.
First, all players start off with $15, but only 2 issued shares. Why is this? Well all track costs a base $3. So the extra cash helps out.
Second, you do not fill out the production chart at the start of the game. All new cities are initially seeded with 3 cubes. When you choose the urbanize action, you simply take one of these cities (and the cubes) and place it onto the board. The goods growth phase has been amended as well. You no longer roll for goods growth. Instead, if someone chose the production action, the reach into the bag and draw two cubes (dancers) and place them onto any one discotheque (city) that is on the board.
Third, your locomotive works in a jive new way. You can chain shipments. If you ship a dancer (cube) to a discotheque (city) and still have locomotive power remaining, you can pick up a new cube at that city and ship it somewhere else! You can even ship the new cube back over the already used track. All other shipment rules apply.
Finally, if a city loses all of it's cubes, it burns to the ground. You flip the tile (if it is a new city) or place an upside down track tile on the city. This city now counts as a colorless city. It still counts for victory points for completed links and as a link for shipping. But it cannot be used for production, it cannot accept cubes, and you cannot build out of it unless you can trace a link through your network back to a city (a la basic town rules).
Now, it's on to the game.
Oh...I almost forgot. One more rule: if any player is caught humming or singing a disco tune when it is not their turn, they lose 1 income.
Game Commentary and Thoughts
Below is a picture of the map at the start of the game.
After reading the rules, starting at the board, and recalling some commentary that Michael Webb provided on this map, I knew that a couple of actions would be especially important on this map. Urbanization would be vital as the cube supply is somewhat limited and the chain shipment rules should make larger shipments a bit easier. Production increased in importance, because you need to keep key cities on the board from burning to the ground. Finally, locomotive, though always vital, would be a particularly good investment because, again, large shipments should be easier given the chaining rules.
The extra $5 came in handy on the first turn and I only issued 1 additional share. I did good in the auction, grabbed urbanization, and setup a nice 2 link network smack dab in the middle of the board.
I'll apologize now, because the close-up pictures are from the end of game snapshot and the cities are already toast. But it should give some idea of the progress of the game.
I chose Light City D (Black) because it came with a number of Red Cubes on it. This provided me with a safe number of early shipments. My initial goal in the game was to cross the board, connecting to the two purple cities. As usual, the game played out differently. Jef built in the upper left corner of the board and Scott took the lower right. Jef quickly threatened builds into the center, but ultimately stayed mostly on his side. Scott, on the other hand, build across the right side and also started into the middle. This proved fortunate for me, as he urbanized a number of locations that I was able to piggy back onto.
This picture, from the middle of the game, show a number of burned down cities. There were urbanizations a la Scott that burned down a la Brad.
Around the turn 5, I also hooked up to the red city in the lower left side of the board. This disco had only one exit, and my monopolization of it provided some great shipments for the rest of the game. It was also about this time that, much to my chagrin, I was caught humming a disco ditty. Arrgh! And it was back one space on the income track for Brad.
After this happened, we had an interesting conversation about the tactics of purposefully humming and getting caught in order to stop income reduction if you are in that "X1" space on the income track. More on this later.
Midway through the game, Jef had fallen behind, and Scott and I were fighting for the lead. I was generally able to stay one or two spaces ahead, but it soon became obvious that Scott's cubes were running out. And Jef's network was finally coming to fruition. He had 5 and 6 link shipments, and he was gunning to use them.
My utilization of the bottom of the board, and Scott's urbanizations, freed up Jef's network and I never really had the chance to connect up to the purple city in the middle of the board. This was a mistake that I regretted many times.
With 2 turns to go, I was finally able to complete the link, but it did take some fancy building, or the engineer action.
And who can forget the turn where, I ended up on 41 on the track. So, I started singing. It went unnoticed at first, but then Scott said, "It's not your turn is it..." To which I reponsded, "Nope, it's not!" (All the while wearing a big grin.) Scott realized his error and I happily dropped one space back on the track!
By the end, cubes were incredibly sparse and cash was readily available. We had obviously traversed into the '80s. Disco was fading but money was plentiful. Anyhow, we fought hard for the remaining new cities and also for the production action. I won production a number of times and Scott got urbanization.
Here is a picture of the board at the end of the game:
The game was close and both Jef and Scott played great. But ultimately it was my low issued shares count that gave me the game. I had 10 to Jef's 15. A last minute shipment by Scott that gave Jef 4 and himself only 2 would been a bit of king-making had my track count not exceeded Jef's. in the end, then, it was shares and track that got me the win.
Final Scores
Brad ( ): 99 (Income) + 36 (Track) = 135
Jef ( ): 99 (Income) + 27 (Track) = 126
Scott ( ): 57 (Income) + 31 (Track) = 88
After playing the Soul Train side of this map, and now trying out the Disco Inferno, I can declare this expansion a resounding success. It's fun, it plays quicker than other expansions (so it's perfect for a shorter time period), and the mechanics work great with the theme.
There are also interesting tricks and tactics you can use in the game. The burning down cities can allow for longer shipments if you play them correctly. Say a red city is in your way? Just ship cubes out of it until it burns. Now it's just an extra link!
The chain shipping also provides for some really neat shipments in the game as you pick up dancers and drop them off at cities all of the board.
And don't forget the "no singing" rule. It may hurt you, but, used correctly, you may just be able to trick your opponents into helping you out.
Disco Inferno is a great mix of new mechanics with a fun theme. Give it a try! It is well worth it. I know I had a good time.
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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Nice report!
I've played this once, I think -- really was a lot of fun. But that no singing rule is just stoopid; I refuse to play with it!
Burn baby burn!
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Bradley Keen
United States
Harrisburg
Pennsylvania
www.punkzter.blogspot.com
It's a horse. On a chair.
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It is kind of silly. It would probably be much more fun to allow players to sing as much as they want (subject to the limits of the other player's sanity).
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Jack Neal
United States
Madison
Ohio
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Nope... Rules is rules, kids. :-D
I'll have to look for this one....
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