By Marcy Morelli
This was my second year attending PrezCon. It’s a bit of a hike from Suburban Philly – especially in the winter. But Amtrak runs right into Charlottesville and that’s a great way to travel. Charlottesville is the home of the University of Virginia and offers some good sightseeing opportunities for those who are interested in Presidential history.
I arrived Monday evening and the Doubletree shuttle picked me up at the train station. It ended up being too late to pick up my badge, but I was able to catch up with some friends.
The Doubletree Charlottesville is a really great spot for a convention the size of PrezCon. The hotel staff are very well organized and seem appreciative of the convention’s presence. A few employees even seemed interested in learning some games.
Besides the shuttle, a pool with hot tub, and the ubiquitous cookie, the hotel also runs a great restaurant. Breakfast offers a large buffet with made-to-order omelets. Lunch and dinner have a tasty menu and you can call in an order and pick it up at the restaurant. There is also a special stand outside the ballroom that offers drinks, sandwiches, pizza, and some special meals throughout the day. In the late evening, 4 or 5 different pies are available. If you have a car at hand, there are plenty of local eating establishments nearby as well as a Walmart.
I’m primarily a EuroGames tournament gamer, and the conference room layout works well for that. Most tournaments are held in either the large Ballroom, or a few steps away in the Gallery Rooms. The food stand is just outside the Ballroom which makes it easy to catch a quick bite if you don’t have many breaks. The vendors set up in-between while open gaming has a large room downstairs.
The convention registration desk is organized and well-staffed for the long hours of the convention. Convention Director Justin Thompson is generally floating around keeping tabs on things, but is easy to find if you need him. PrezCon players are friendly and welcoming to newcomers.
Tournaments at PrezCon award plaques to the final table based on the total numbers of players who participated in the game.
Besides the regular tournament line-up PrezCon also holds several mini-cons during the convention: ColumbiaCon, RevCon, and a EuroGames sampler event. The Agricola and Catan tournaments are both regional championships with winners advancing to a National Championship.
PrezCon will also hold a Summer Nationals event in June. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend – you’ll have a great time!
Key Cities and the ‘Around the World’ Bonus Chit – The bonus chit for getting into all colors is an important bonus. Although it’s possible to win without it, the winning player will have one of these chits a vast majority of the time. As a result, the colors with just a single city (Lodz, Innsbruck, and Sigmaringen) are a little more valuable initially. You can also add Pilsen to that list, as it’s the only way to get into Lodz.
In a four-player game, you’ll generally go through the deck around two times or so, depending on Administrator use. With only 3 copies of each city in the deck, obviously at least one player will miss out on the key cards the first time through. When the opportunity is there, I will try to make sure I’m working on a route that includes a key city when the first shuffle occurs. Better yet, I’ll also be holding another key city in my hand ready for my next route. I’m often willing to take a tempo hit to extend a route one extra turn to keep a card out of the shuffle, especially if another copy is also out.
On the majority of your turns, you’ll be using either the ‘Draw 2’ or ‘Play 2’ special ability so it’s fair to think of your turn as having 3 actions. Every city in a route costs you two actions; one to draw the card and one to play it. With 20 post offices, you need a minimum of 40 actions, or 14 turns, to be able to end the game that way. However, you are bound to need to hit a couple cities more than once, adding a few turns to that. If a player is rushing to the 7-cart by using the cartwright, turn 14 is also the earliest that the game end can be triggered. The 7-cart is worth 3 points more than the 6-cart, which is over 10% of most winning scores. It’s another 2 points less for the 5-cart. In addition, the first player to acquire a 7 also gets the 1 point bonus for ending the game so if you end the game while still on the 6-cart, you already have 4 points to make up. I point all this out to stress the importance of keeping pace with the cart leader. Although Thurn is not a race game, it often plays out like one. The cartwright ability serves a couple purposes in relation to tempo – 1) It can help maintain pace with the cart leader; 2) It can help you catch up when other circumstances have caused you to fall behind; and 3) it allows you to get away from small routes while still picking up the next cart.
Don’t be afraid to use the Administrator. I’ve seen plenty of players refuse to (or rarely) ‘flush’ the cards because they consider it inefficient or feel that it just helps the other players too much. On its surface, the administrator does “waste” 1 action, by depriving you of the ability to draw or play a city. However, if the ideal cards aren’t there to draw, you aren’t losing a good action. The alternatives are drawing blind off the top or taking a less desirable card for your route, possibly hitting a duplicate city. The blind draw could get you a completely useless card (for the 1 action wasted as using the Administrator) and leaves you in the same position for your next action. That’s not to say there aren’t times to draw blind as well. If there are several connectors that will work and the deck is low and you’re confident there’s a good chance, then go for it. But also pay attention to what cards your opponents are currently looking for. The flush can be used as a good defensive play, getting rid of someone’s key card while improving your own card selection. Similarly, if I notice that there is nothing on the board that connects to the next player’s route, I may be more likely to blind draw, and possibly put them into a position where they need to flush.
Aggressions were often defense card checks, especially early in a game. A one point strength lead meant you could either: force a discard of a highly sought after defense card , win the aggression, or make them sacrifice a unit. All of those outcomes were great, so hitting someone hard early was something that was desired – making Caesar the highest ranked leader in Age A. His extra red dot meant more cards drawn, the ability to hit and keep drawing cards, and a minuscule strength lead good enough to hit someone in round 3 with an aggression.
I use the same formula when determining to attack someone or not. This can change based on the number of defense cards seen, how many of the previous age were used, etc. Due to fewer aggressions overall, people can be assumed to have a previous age defense card as well, but as per every game of this nature, you must make that judgement call based on what has happened thus far in your game. But I do tend to not send aggression to people who are safe-ish based on the above presumption.
One of the big weaknesses in the old Through the Ages was the Age II tactics lottery. You wanted to have 3 red dots going into Age II to maximize your chance of drawing a classic army, or perhaps a Napoleonic army as a consolation prize. Sometimes you just set up your military for whatever and hoped for any (non-fortification) tactics card. Failing to draw a red card in Age II probably spelled the end of your game.
There are ways to shore up your weaknesses if you are unable to pull it all together. Winston Churchil has the ability to make up stone and science. Albert Einstein can keep you topped up with the science needed, provided you can find a Computers card. Yellow cards abound to help make up the stone issues.
This article will walk you through everything you can expect from our League format, plus – most importantly – tell you how you can sign up for our first supported game: Thurn & Taxis!
Thurn & Taxis is a nice light Euro-game that has been very popular on the tournament circuit ever since it won the Spiel des Jahres in 2006. It’s actually one of the few games at the World Boardgaming Championships that’s big enough to require a quarter-final round.