by AronFJenks
Tonesta78 wrote:
[o]Happy to discuss, because we lost December the first time through as well - but in doing so, were able to optimize things in such a way that the second attempt was a cakewalk; I believe we had only two incidents, and that was despite the other three players wasting multiple moves to do a couple of additional pointless searches for completion's sake and travelling to Johannesburg at the end so they could be there to greet the Carrier! Also, one of those incidents was during set up, because I completely forgot to put any cubes on London.
Don't get me wrong - we tried to win on the first attempt. But once we realized we were in trouble, we also kept an eye out for what changes would be helpful if we needed a second attempt. I think that's an important part of any legacy game.
I think there's several parts to it to avoid luck seriously having to come into play:
1) The carrier needs to have the ability to pick up a red card from the discard pile. Getting three (or four in our case - we had already built a sea route from Manila to Hong Kong, so the most direct route was blocked) of those is almost certain to be the toughest step. But if he/she can reuse one multiple times, it eliminates much of the luck of the draw (you only need to find one).
I believe the only two abilities that work (unless you've saved searches for Lookout - we hadn't) are either the Sanitation Worker job or the Investigator upgrade. We had neither in our first attempt, and got unlucky with the card draw. We equipped Investigator for the second attempt and luck became less of an issue
2) Topaz for the win. There's nothing you can do to stop a plague cube appearing in a city with no supply cubes, but you can stop a city from dropping from 1 supply cube to 0 by chucking out a card of that colour. And with only 7/8 cards total being needed for the journey, there should be plenty of spare cards going around in every colour but red. I suspect we used that ability 10-12 times in our winning run (having forgotten about it completely in our failed first December attempt) to stop a whole heap of cities becoming 'at risk'.
Of course if you never went to Wellington, then this is not an option.
3) Well positioned permanent radio towers in every colour for other players to transmit when needed
4) Shelters on route to prevent the carrier taking additional exposure
5) Permanent supply center in Johannesburg. When you search it, the card explicitly tells you that you're going to need a supply center there. So the game did provide a clue that that was going to come up
My view is that there was undoubtedly luck involved the first time through December - it's impossible to plan for something when you don't know what that something is! - but there's fewer excuses the second time once you know what's needed. And you'll of course have an additional 8 VPs between the two games to help you prepare.[/o]
[o] 1) On our first, messed up attempt (before we realized the shorter route) we had he carrier be the person with the investigate ability. I agree that it's optimal, however, in my "do-over" last night, it wasn't an option, and it worked out okay. Rather than designate a carrier too early, we spent a couple turns setting things up, by which point one person had 4 of the 7 cards needed, and our originally intended carrier (with the investigate ability) only had one card total. So, we changed plans. (I cannot recall exactly, but I think we instantly added that upgrade the moment we saw it available. It seemed to be worth way more than its cost.)
2) Definitely Topaz. We used that ability probably more than 10 to 12 times each time, and in my successful venture last night, we were down to almost zero city cards when we won. (We also built six shelters to protect from scars and population loss). Once the carrier had the cards we needed, we used any and all city cards without concern.
3) This is an interesting strategy, one that we did not employ. We couldn't justify 3 game end points for something that can be built with one action and (maybe) 2 supply cubes. We didn't even have 6 permanent Supply Centers, and certainly a permanent supply center is a lot harder and more valuable than a radio tower, so we ignored that upgrade. as played, we only needed to build and use one radio tower - to send a blue card to our laborer so he could use broker to retrieve the infrastructure card from the discard pile. And if we hadn't missed the explicit clue about building a Supply center in Johannesburg, we wouldn't have even needed to do that.
4) Definitely. And, to get a higher score at game end!
5) Again I am kicking myself, I suppose. I am going to go look at the card because I did not realize this. Then again, I also missed an earlier card that explicitly said "It is crucial we keep the Route from PEARL to JADE open." At the start of my December, we had TWO of the 7 necessary supply lines not even drawn, and no Supply center in Johannesburg.
For the second try in December, if needed, I think that it depends. On one hand, yes, 8 more game end points. But, in our first failed try, before I realized the shorter route, we didn't need any more upgrades. All the useful ones were already taken, so From October onward we used upgrade points to improve population and keep cities above 1 so they wouldn't be at risk of being forsaken mid month from 4 faded figures being placed. In hindsight, a permanent Supply Center in Johannesburg would have helped, but I missed that clue. I suppose a permanent Supply center near Shanghai might have helped also, but there was little time to do that and no way to know how useful it would be. So, playing December a second time, minus the character with the investigate ability, minus all unrationed events, and minus one or two productions cards, is certainly no guarantee of victory, even knowing exactly what needs to be done. Especially since some unpleasant enemies will have returned from box 6, making the initial set up of the supply cubes a nightmare and something of a crapshoot.
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