Age of Steam Expansion: Amazon Rainforest & Sahara Desert

6 : Sahara Desert : Well the idea isn't bad and you need a lot of money. But there's a change you're closed in because you have build on one network. So it's possible to be blocked soon. I hadn't that problem, but one player went bankrupt soon.

[Amazon Rainforest] 3-6p

[Sahara Desert] 1x with 3 players. Good and novel. Not sure about long-term replayability due to the rule whereby you cannot break your network.

Sahara is especially brutal

I give the 9 rating to the Amazon. Sahara is a 7.

Amazon: No towns and thus no urbanize. Track is wicked expensive. Engineer makes it cheaper. Almost all the cities are four away from each other, but you can build four track at a time. The net effect is that folks top out on shares with only three links - maybe four. So how do you make money? The big change is that the value of ships is not dependent on the number of links but rather the scarcity of the cube. The fewer the color on the board, the higher the value of delivering it - all the way up to 7 for the last cube. But because you only have three or four links, you often need to use someone else's track. Here is where the next twist comes in: no matter what track is used, all owners share the value evenly, rounded down. So running a five-value cube over the tracks of three different players nets each of those players 1. Sharing the expensive cubes with just one other person is fine and necessary, though. Finally, the last twist is how the cubes get back on the board. The player who selects production, takes cubes (equal to the number of players) off the market display (thus reducing the value of the next ships) and places them on the board - one in each city of his choice. This makes production - and management of the production player - critical. The fact that only one can go in each city means that others benefit.

Overall, I don't know how much replayability the map has, but it is a wonderful departure from traditional AoS with its circular track structure and progressive loco'ing. In this game, dominance of a node - likely with a three-pointed star - that connects four colors with a fifth one opponent's track removed - is the pattern. A three-train (maybe four) is all you need. Shipping first is not crital; managing when you ship is though, so that you get the best ships after the price is up - but you don't miss that high-value one. It is a great take on a dynamic market with an emphasis on the production action.Sahara:One play of Sahara. Takes the tightness of the money in AoS and ratchets it up by a factor. The board has cities around the edges with a big vast desert in the middle. But the desert has the oases and water is what you need to ship. Build to an oasis, get a blue water cube to allow a shipment. There are two other ways to get water: import it for a whopping $5 or win it in the auction.

Water, then, is the premier item in the auction. Urbanize is a pretty good consolation prize. Because of the initial linearity of the ships, loco is a mixed blessing. Turn order pass is strong because it gives one potential access to the water on the next turn.

While our first play wasn't particularly interactive on the map because of the vast desert, the auctions were fierce - for the first half at least. There is a tipping point, however, where the water action is SO powerful in the late mid-game that the person who has the cash can pull away by winning it each time.

Sahara Desert: A tough perversion with real cut-throat opportunities. Connected track builds and the desperate need to connect through the limited water cubes means its very easy to be cut out of anything viable. even the start, with 4 players, can be very tight as players contest the luscious green coastal strips. Not an expansion for the fainthearted or cry babies.

Amazon rainforest: Not played yet