by Tonesta78
AronFJenks wrote:
[o]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.
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. [/o]
[o]So look - on the one hand, we're discussing strategies that are clearly (on the face of it) a wash because you and I ended up with nearly identical scores (I think we were 868 in the end).
But for us the logic was that building a radio tower was not a one-time deal....it was something we would use over and over. So I think that by June, we already had permanent towers in Denver & Cairo, in the same spots as our permanent research stations (and we built a yellow one not long after). We used them almost every month to move cards around - so each ended up being more like a 6 action + 12 cube saving....we thought justifiable for 3 VPs.
Basically our radio operator barely ever moved - or if he did only between our main 'bases' - where he'd spend his turns collecting and moving cubes and cards around, and doing some remote healing (using whatever that upgrade was called).
Also if some particularly nasty cards came out of Box 6....nothing to stop you tramping over there and putting them back in the box.
On a more general point.....I rather feel that the December game should be a challenge, and was glad that it was. Although as I say, second time we never ever felt we were remotely in danger of losing. Maybe we got some lucky draws and just didn't know it......[/o]