New Year Games

We were ale to have some family over for New Year and, of corse, we played games. 

With five of us initially we played Ticket To Ride: Europe, our first time with the full five players.

Of course it quickly got chaotic around France and Germany.

The end. Cei (Black) won itwith his Edinburg to Athens ticket and a couple of side trips. I cam a very close second, with my Copenhagen to Cadiz run (Red) and my branch-line to Rome. Catherine (Green) did the tricky Stockholm to Petrograd route, but got stymied by us teaming up to block her getting across Russia to Eastern Turkey and preventing her getting the longest track in the game. This cost her the win.

Maya and Satvik turned up later; they'd stayed away because they were waiting for Covid test results, but got negative ones and came over to join us later in the evening. We played seven-player Love Letter, but we found it dragged a bit when people were also trying to be social. We finished it, but probably woldn't play it again under the same circumstances.

The next day saw three of us left at lunchtime, so Catherine and I taught Maya to play Flamme Rouge. We ran a simple track, with a short section of cobblestones, one small ascent and one small descent. Maya was blue, I was red and Catherine green. Here we are after the start.

Cobblestones can have narrow, one-lane, sections which create choke-points. And that's just what happened.

Once we were free of them the race opened up a little. Maya got left behind as Catherine forged ahead with one of her riders and I tried to keep up.

I managed to get my second rider back into the front pack as we turned towards the ascent.

On the ascent I managed to overtake one of Catherine's riders, and Maya caught up as well.

The finish! I just clinched a win ahead of Catherine.

Maya managed to leave the ascent ahead of our two remaining riders to take thrid and fourth place.

The route.

Maya and Catherine switched to video games at this point, so I went off to try a Tour - a series of linked Flamme Rouge games. I ran one team and used one of the many AI systems on the 'net to run the other three teams. I track podium places for each race (first, second and third) as well as the finish teams for each of the eight riders. I ran a Tour of four races - three of them used course cards from the game itself and the fourth one I'd designed last week reprsenting the run from Sydney to Wollongong.

This is the first race - Avenue Corso Paseo from the game itself, but with a 12-space section of cobbles halfway around. This is a flat track, so is a pure sprint.

Away we go!

An impressive procession. My team is the red one.

I won the first race fairly easily. 

The second race was on the Ballons Centrale course, which has three ascents each followed by a descent. 

This was trickier, and I only managed a third place.

From then on I got too wrapped up in bookkeeping to take photos and keep a full report of the game. The third race saw me take first place again, on the La Haute Montagne course. This has one large ascent/descent halfway around, but finishes with an epic ascent to the finish as well. 

The final race was the Sydney to Wollongong run, which starts with a sprint through the city, then a series of steep clims and descents through the Royal National Park, folowed by a fast descent and one small hill  and a final sprint along the coast into Wollongong itself. The climbs in the middle can really break up the pack, and a few riders got left behind, but I managed a close second place to win the tour overall.

To be honest the AI I was using wasn't that hard to beat, and I will be switching to a different one in future games.

I'm really a bit obsessed with Flamme Rouge at the moment.