Olli came by to try out the new table. We’ve moved (short distance, just couple hundred meters, but we got an extra room and about 30 square meters more space), and now we have a kitchen and a separate dining room, with a gorgeous new table. As we also have a table in kitchen, it’s easier to conquer one table for games while rest of the family can eat on the other…

I was planning an 1830 game, but that fell through, nobody else could come with such a short notice. That wasn’t too bad, because it meant we could play our staple two-player game, 1825 Unit 3. This would be our fourth game.

Previously we had learnt that letting your opponent take all of Caledonian Railways on the first stock round is a good way to guarantee a loss. So, we split it more equally this time. Olli got the directorship, while I took a good dose of NBR stock. The opening was fairly typical, but got a new direction, when Olli opened Highland instead of GSWR. HR opened cheap, at 67 (it ended up the weakest company at 142).

GSWR worked well for me. So did NBR, actually — I pushed the price up to 120 or so, sold most of it while retaining directorship, let it collect dividends while falling back to 90, then rebought and drove it eventually to 255, including one quadriple leap. Beautiful.

The two remaining minors were opened at much higher. Olli had learnt the lesson as well. He opened GN of S at whopping 142. I was content to open M&C at 126. Olli even helped me fund it (why not, as he bought an IPO share and immediately sold it for 160). That 1, 260 pounds was enough to buy the mandatory 3T train and two more trains, a 3 and a 5, both of which were sold for 10 pounds to NBR. To finish it off, I sold the M&C director’s share for 720 pounds when it had reached it zenith (well, it would’ve climbed one more step, I forgot to account for tile replacement on its tiny route).

I was raking in money at the end, which was highly useful. The thing was, Olli had somewhat better stock portfolio. He had more minors, which meant higher share density. In the last operating round he exceeded my earnings, too, which meant the game finished exactly at the right time for me.

In the end, my stock portfolio was 5, 059 pounds against his 6, 061 pounds. However, I had 2, 675 pounds in cash against his 1, 375 pounds. Thus, the final scores were 7, 734

and 7, 436 pounts and I was able to win the game! It was close, but I had over 5% margin, so it wasn’t a completely marginal victory.

So, for the first time, the original director of CR lost the game. That was a welcome change. My winning score was the highest ever and Olli’s score was the third highest so far. I figure that means we’ve learnt something.

Once again the game took three hours sharp, with some heavy thinking included. I forgot to take an end-of-game photo, but the track play was fairly typical.

We finished the session off with two quick games of San Juan, including the expansion cards from Alea Treasure Chest. These add some welcome spice to the game. There are also events, which are extra actions players can use. These one-off actions offer some special opportunities. It’s not as good an addiction as the new buidlings, but not bad. The new buildings include some gems.

If someone has the Alea Treasure Chest but doesn’t need the San Juan expansion, I’d like to buy it! Drop me a comment or an e-mail (mikko at mikkosgameblog.com) I’ve got zero interest for the other expansions and buying the whole set and then selling the other expansions sounds like too much trouble.