[Consim-l] Quick overview of Bill Salvatore's experiences at WBC

[Salvatore, Bill - BLS]

Attended Cleopatra demo (philosophically similar to Thurn und 
Taxis[*], but with more negotiating), got crushed in Caylus, 
bought a copy of Russia Besieged (a vanity remake of fourth-
edition Russian Campaign, tweaked to address the pet peeves 
of the owner of L2 games), attended the Santa Fe Rails demo, 
placed second in a tournament game of TtR-USA, learned Thurn 
und Taxis, and was a runaway winner in my first game ever of 
TtR-Maerklin.  (That often happens in my first game of 
something, where i make some unconventional strategic choice 
and it works out, mainly by surprising the other players, who 
never imagined that anyone would do something so stupid.  In 
this case, i chose to start with four long tickets and kept 
three, and did not make a passenger run until the game's final 
player-turn.)  Won a tournament game of Alhambra, came in third 
at my table in semi-final round.  In San Juan, my pod of four 
players had (by chance) the 2005 winner, the 2004 winner, 
another finalist from 2005, and a novice who told us afterward 
that she had played four or five times before.  [Turns out she 
goes to Stanford and is also the only person ever to have won 
four non-Junior events at the same WBC.  She definitely grokked 
the Big Purple strategy, lost by one point to the 2004 champion 
(who won the pod), lost by one point to the 2005 champion, and 
crushed the 2005 non-champion finalist, to finish third in the 
pod.]  i got crushed in a game of Puerto Rico.  Got tie-breaked 
out of the TtR semis.  Along the way, i won my two tournament 
games of Power Grid (Germany, then Italy) by getting very 
fortunate power-plant draws; my goal in the final was not to 
finish fifth, but i failed.  (when you swim with the sharks, 
you can learn a lot, but you very often get eaten.)   Final was 
played on the France board, with GM condition that the Paris 
region was the one out of play; it was brutal! (and slow)      

[*]mini-reviews:      TuT is not an economics-oriented sociable 
strategy game, like Puerto Rico, but instead one where a lot of 
things are going on at once and you have to keep track of all 
of them.  it's like Caylus to me, in that i enjoy it but will 
never be good at it.  Cleopatra looks to me as if it would feel 
the same (except drier), even though it's implemented very 
differently.  Santa Fe Rails appears antiquated in terms of 
mechanics (and it has been out for over five years, i think).  
Oltre Mare looks interesting but a little fiddly.  Masons 
looks as if it would feel like an area-influence game, 
without really being one, and i suspect that i would hate it.