Oops. I noticed I had missed blogging our previous Thursday game session. You see, I got sick (stomach flu, fortunately Johanna and Nooa avoided the same bug) the night after that, so I had something else to think about for a while… But here it is, just in time before our next session!
After a quick San Juan, it was time for Wabash Cannonball. I played a bad, bad game, losing to both Hannu and Riku… I did beat the newbie in the table, but that’s not a major achievement. I blame Hannu, of course, whose whole purpose was to crush me down right away. Ok, so maybe I screwed up when I wasted all my money in the initial auction. I won’t do that again, I promise. Tough game, and it certainly proved that it’s possible to take someone down if you want to. Then again, at the same time it’s pretty hard to take a leader down once he’s in the lead, or at least I never succeed when I try that.
I wanted to revisit Canal Mania. You know, the last time I said “in the future, I’ll probably prefer four — or five, if everybody plays fast.” Let’s make that “I’ll prefer three, or four if everybody plays fast.” We had four this time, and the downtime was too much for my (short) nerves.
We were able to finish the game in 90 minutes, but it took some pushing in the end when time started to run out. I was able to win the game pretty easy, as I got lucky with contracts and built a nice, large contiguous network around Oxford. It worked really well, I was constantly making excellent shipments and also receiving few points per turn from other players goods movement. Of course, in Canal Mania it’s pretty hard to plan something like that, you need to be lucky with the contracts, but if you can make it work, you’ll do well.
So, I still like the game, but I also think it’s a tad long for what it is. Even 90 minutes feels like a bit too much, to be honest. I’m going to give it few more chances and when Ropecon is in August, I’m selling the game if it doesn’t thrill me by then.