Breno K.
Brazil
Brasília
Distrito Federal
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So I bought this expansion based on just half a dozen good scores here on BGG, and while I don't even own age of steam yet. Some other players in our game group do, so I managed to sneak in a play of this anyway (I did buy my own copy, I'll probably get my hands on it in December). This is a collection of first impressions, but I think it'll prove useful considering that there's not a lot of info posted here on BGG
Why I like this expansion:
1) Zombies. While I'm not a huge zombie fans, they're definitely more awesome than vampires (specially emo vampires that haunt slightly pretty teenage girls of recent times) and frankenstein (which is just one dude). I love the absurd theme of people building railroad lines while zombies attack, managing profit, network construction and debt while entire cities are decimated. I'm sure this could help some of the more ameritrash gaming buddies here in Brasília give Age of Steam a chance, or at least be more excited about playing it.
2) The zombies work very well. It's a simple and clever mechanism, that affects gameplay and strategy quite strongly. When they reach a town/city, all the cubes are removed from it and a blank tile is placed on top of it (it doesn't receive any more goods, but you can ship through it) . At the end of our game, over half of the map was destroyed, and there were only 5 cubes left in the entire map. And it's interesting how they sometimes bunch together and sometimes separate, like they're really wandering mindlessly to their next victims.
And they do not only cause destruction: when you build in a hex with a zombie in it, it costs $1 more per zombie, to a maximum of 3 zombies per hex. And probably worse than that, shipping goods in lines with zombies also cost suffer the same penalty: at one time a player had to pay $4 to ship a cube because of poor planning on his part. Since they always move at the end of the turn, these extra costs float from track to track, from shipment to shipment (in a pre-determined manner, entirely predictable to a good player), so one cube can be costly right now and rather cheap later on. I dunno, I really liked having to sometimes pay to ship cubes, it keeps money tight throughout the game (instead of mostly in the beginning, like in the original AoS)
3) Tighter game. Age of steam is already pretty tight, and this is definitely extra-tight. There is no "locomotive" special power (Substituted by a "military caboose" which nullifies zombie-related costs... and is definitely a good power from third turn on), so all train upgrades have to be done at the cost of a cube delivery. In our game, nobody reached 6-Locomotive, and even if they had, I did not see a single possible 6-delivery, with all the commotion of cities being destroyed and players bypassing zombies and bunching together on a corner to avoid them.
4) Almost no luck aside from initial setup. This is a characteristic that I admire more than enjoy: the expansion does away with the production phase, with the only remaining luck being the production special action (which has you drawing 3 cubes and placing one of them in any non-razed city on the map). Though the chances of you not drawing anything good is rather slim, and probably your fault anyway (you should be able to ship to many different colors during the course of the game).
One minor quibble is that the income track was a little too small for the discs in the FRED edition. Also, I think this expansion would only barely work with 5 players. It was already hellishly tight with 4, with some players even going "pass" at a few cube delivery steps, with 5 it would probably be only for the masochistic (though Michael Webb does own that specific microbadge).
Sadly, I cannot compare to any other AoS expansions since this was the first one I played, but after this one I'm definitely excited to try more. The changes here heavily influence the thinking you have to do to succeed, turning it into a different (but still recognizable) experience.
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Brad
United States
Iowa City
Iowa
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BrenoK wrote: The zombies work very well...it's interesting how they sometimes bunch together and sometimes separate, like they're really wandering mindlessly to their next victims.
Great review! Could you give a brief description of the mechanism for determining zombie movement?
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Costas
Canada
London
Ontario
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DarkoBeta wrote: Great review! Could you give a brief description of the mechanism for determining zombie movement?
Zombies start in randomly determined 'graveyard' hexes. At the end of every turn, zombies move to the nearest cubes.
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Breno K.
Brazil
Brasília
Distrito Federal
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If there are multiple cities within the same distance, they split up. If to the same city there are multiple equally paths, they split up. If there's any decision to be made as to how they split up, first player in turn order decides how the split is made.
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Michael Webb
United States
The City of Steel
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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BrenoK wrote: Also, I think this expansion would only barely work with 5 players. It was already hellishly tight with 4, with some players even going "pass" at a few cube delivery steps, with 5 it would probably be only for the masochistic (though Michael Webb does own that specific microbadge).
Indeed, the 5 player experience is extremely tight. The game does go one fewer round, which lightens the pressure on the cubes slightly, but the additional player adds a lot of shipments to the game, this is not as bad as it might seem for the early game at least though, as it encourages people to start closer to the zombies which means more cubes are being shipped before locations are razed, which also means there are more cubes effectively present in the game. Poor management of the zombies on any of the maps at any scale can easily lead to shortages by the late game though, so save some money for the auction, you might need to win if you want goods shipments in games like that 
I enjoy playing the PA map with 5 more than 4 simply because I like the pain (hence, the masochist badge  ) and this is also why I like the MI map so much. 4 player PA is probably the best place to start with this expansion, especially for new players though, as it's the most gentle way to play. MI and 5 player PA are about equal in terms of difficulty.
I codename the maps I'm working on, and the name for this one was "Pain," just as Montreal was "Competition" and the ones I'm working on now are "Planning," "Spatial," and "Bid." I doubt I'll ever make another map that is as tight as the zombies are, it was an expression of my desire to push the pain level as much as possible while still leaving profitability a realistic scenario.
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Mikko Saari
Finland
http://www.lautapeliopas.fi/ - the best Finnish board game resource!
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I just played the map yesterday and it's absolutely great. We had four players and it was very, very expensive. I wouldn't call it gentle... but it was fun. Most of the zombies kind of got stuck in a corner, but the game was hard enough otherwise - I won with just 25 points.
Based on this and Montreal, I would put in a preorder for all your future expansions right now, Michael. These maps are that good.
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