Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant

I've gone off Wallace a bit lately. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with this and I enjoyed my one play but I don't need to buy it

I got a chance to play Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant at Origins 2011 in a preview form and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

There's a lot to like in Aeroplanes: Aviation Ascendant. Rolling to claim new routes was really fun and there were lots of choices to make that would allow you to improve your position.

Unfortunately, there were many problems with this one. Found myself investing a lot in passengers in the 2nd round, but apparently I was 1 short, so I got very few points (bonus is given to the 1st and 2nd place). I don't like this aspect of the game, since it is very difficult to be able to determine how many passengers the other players had.

I also, found myself in a bad position at the start of the last round, since there were no passengers going to North America and 2 going to South America. I wasn't positioned to deliver those passengers, but this information was not available till the last round of the game and I couldn't do anything to fix it...

In general, there are some possibilities for a great game here, but the I would not buy it the form I played at Origins.

Not for me

gra

Fun Wallace game with an interesting economy. At heart, a order-fulfillment game. Played smoothly and had a fair sense of progression. The dice added some odd elements, but I think there were plenty of ways to mitigate the risk. I'll happily play it again, but I probably won't buy it.

First two games (3 and 5 player) showed that the game works well at ends of the player range. The game plays exceptionally good. The decisions are easy to see but hard to make. O you expand Europe or move to longer distance? To some extent this depends on the passengers and so each game will be different. The aeroplane cards are beautiful and that system works well too. Cheaper or more expensive planes? Ones with more airport capacity or less?

Typical interesting and engaging Wallace game.

Another good game from Martin Wallace. I enjoyed the game mechanics, I have only one issue concerning this: I really didn't enjoy the random starting player system, it lacks of a mechanic that gives the player control of some situations, but in every other matters the game seems very balanced and there are some strategies possible. There is another thing I didn't liked, the art, the board is terribly ugly.

First game was very tense and exciting.

A solid set collecting game, with just enough random quirks to upset traditional Euro fans but not enough theme to attract trashers. As I mostly straddle both camps, I didn't mind this, thinking it decent enough. You collect a plane fleet card that gives you an airport token or two and provides capacity. Plant your tokens on various airports, and then start collecting the passenger tokens at the airports where you have tokens that have a destination where you also have a token. Fill your fleet to capacity, acquire more capacity and more airport tokens, continue. You'll get points at the end of each of the three rounds for collecting the most passengers (less any unfilled capacity, so you need to be careful to be close to full at the end of each round), plus some area majority points for having most tokens out in each of the three continents shown. There's plenty of luck in whether new passengers come out each round on your airports that you can immediately claim because they're going someplace you already have a token. Also, expanding out to the far-flung destinations (where the VP passengers go) involves some hairy die-rolling - which can be alleviated by spending some actions building up emergency chits which allow you re-rolls and other action manipulators. There's your risk management. So at its guts it's building a network to allow you to claim the most passengers (hope you get lucky) together with a race to build the most airports. With some vicious Brass-like airport higher-tech airport token overbuilds in the end-game to claim the area-majority points. The one thing that doesn't work well is if you run out of money and actions earlier than the other players - it takes forever to claim all the money out of countdown zone (when it runs out, the round ends) which makes for some dullness. That and the pain of rolling for start player every turn, which means if you want something, claim it fast because it's possible for anyone to have 2 turns before you go again - non-conducive to game flow. Anyway, despite some rough edges, the game worked fine and provided some interesting planning and risk mitigation decisions along the way. I'm not sure I want to play with the full complement of 5 - urghh on the downtime and the inability to plan with so much competition on the board for those passengers. With 3, you could mostly safely plan ahead, with the occasional surprise, and that felt about right.