More Wabash Cannonball. Hannu was keen to give the game another go and so was I. We were joined by Petri and Make, both newbies. It was an interesting game… This time we played for long, it took us almost 90 minutes to finish. Petri tends to do that for games, I’ve noticed, but we also had what, six dividends or so. We just didn’t capitalize aggressively enough, I suppose.

I had a plan: I wanted to drive a railroad to Chicago. I got NYC and did exactly that. The costs were bad, though, as people kept diluting the shares and I kept paying ridiculous amounts of money to keep the company worth something. It was a lesson learned, let’s just say, and next time I won’t be as silly. I only had NYC, you see, so I had to fight to have a chance. Make had a different strategy: in the end he had one share from each company. Petri had mostly C&O, and was able to keep the company to himself for a long time, which sealed his victory.

Oh, and talk about curious results: I had over 100 money in the end, yet I lost. Petri had something like 160. It was a crazy game. It is interesting how the game can develop in so many directions. I know (now) that my plan was sheer idiocy, but I had to try it to see what happens. Next time I’ll try something else. I still enjoyed the game a lot, it was very exciting even though (or maybe because) I was a fool.

Hannu wanted to play Thebes, which he had bought on his visit to Germany recently. We continued from trains to archeology. Our merry table talk got even merrier, when we started digging up treasure. Hannu particularly got a ribbing, when he first spent quite a while talking about archeology (playing congress cards) and then botched just about all his excavations big time. Oops.

So yeah, this is not a game for the faint of heart, but if you don’t mind the huge swings of luck involved, the game does marry good theme to solid game mechanics in a way few games can. It’s simply fun. I don’t know if Thebes is something I’d want to play a lot, but every now and then it’s sure good entertainment. Me and Hannu agreed, though, that the two-player game has something to it that the four-player game loses. I like the way there’s more time for research in the two-player game. Well, it’s fun both ways.