by FinalAttack
Delta Force - January and February - Time to step up! [End of Feb SPOILERS Galore!!]
The following recount the tales of Delta Force. We aim for survival and optimization. It be a brief overview of our game, focused on big game moments, narrow escapes and strategic discussion.
Introducing Delta Force:
Odin (Laborer) - Builder extraordinaire, played by Joey.
Pink Eye (Instructor) - The giving tree, that couldn't really be bothered right now, played by Morgan.
Tethys (Farmer) The farmer, the most complicated role for our least experienced player, played by Rob.
Deadpool (Administrator) - teleport edition! Now with 10% more teleport! Played by me, Danny.
Ripley (Radio Operator) - sidelined for now
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Game 1: January, first tryWe lose! Opps someone shuffled the player deck while nobody was looking, that's why we got all 5 epidemics before half way. MULLIGAN!
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Game 1: January, first try (Re-do)Players: Joey as Odin (Laborer), Morgan as Pink Eye (Instructor), Rob as Tethys (Farmer), Danny as Deadpool (Administrator)
Ration level: 4
Objectives: create 3 new supply centers [mandatory], Recon N. America [mandatory]
Ok, we have the player deck sorted. Everything is legit this time. So with our game mastery and expert... WE LOSE AGAIN!? Damn, we dilly dallied around too much and the player deck is smaller than we anticipated!! We really needed to do more (any) trading. Our hands ended in a lot of colourful and useless rainbows.
So with the end in sight we spend our last couple of turns before we officially lose, exploring North America and put down a few connections. We aim to be ahead for next game.
Game Summary: Month - January, 1st attempt
Result - Loss
Developments - Recon NA, connected 3 new cities
Grid size - 13 cities
Upgrades - 4 points
Strategic Discussion:
We lost. The player deck is thin so the game is quicker than we anticipated. Based on our draws we needed to do a lot more trading. Our decision to recon N.America and connect some cities will help next game. We missed San Fran which is 2 additional player cards, so hopefully we can make that connection next game.
Upgrades:Architect for the Laborer, reduces the cost of building supply centers by 1. Now he can do them with only 3 cards, and two supply cubes.
Foundation upgrade, which placed on a player card, making that card worth 2 cards when building a supply center. We put it on a blue card since it seems to give us the highest chance of matching colours.
Upgrade which we are eyeing off for next game - Both the Infrastructure and Foundation upgrade.. These will buff our supply center building ability which seems crucial to the game. Player abilities can come later.
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Game 2: January, second attemptPlayers: Danny as Odin (Laborer), Morgan as Pink Eye (Instructor), Rob as Tethys (Farmer)
Ration level: 6
Objectives: create 3 new supply centers [mandatory], Recon N. America [completed last game]
One player down today, but we are pretty confident we can win it. N.America is already discovered, we have 4 more city cards in the player deck which should give us time. Halfway through the game we feel comfortable winning so we recon S. America. Next big decision point was where we can win the game or go one more round. The additional round would allow us extra connections in S. America. But after debate of what could occur and the impact of an epidemic card we finish the game.
Game Conclusion: Result - Win!
Developments - Recon S.America, connected 3 new cities
Grid size - 15 cities
Upgrades - 5 points
Strategic Discussion:
This game was significantly easier. The extra thick player deck. 3 players. Maybe a bit more luck with the card draw. It all came together to make this a walk in the park. Very little I noticed to improve game play wise. Mobility was a bit of an issue with N.America as it cost one turn at a time to move around making it slow going.
I noticed though we still didn't do very much trading. Trading seems quite difficult generally due to space between players laying down supply cubes. Starting to wonder whether the the Instructor is worth having around.
Upgrades:3 x Foundation stickers and 1 x Infrastructure stickers - this is placed on the player cards giving everyone the ability to complete supply centers which seem to be core to the game.
For next game, several upgrades all seem quite good now. Nothing jumps out as being greatly superior. Probably looking at about 70% of them as potential upgrades next game.
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Game 3: February, first attemptPlayers: Danny as Odin (Laborer), Morgan as Pink Eye (Instructor), Rob as Tethys (Farmer)
Ration level: 4
Objectives: recon an area (new), create two new connections (new), create 3 new supply centers [mandatory]
Story has us scouting unknown lands more and establishing new connections.
Three player game. With the latest upgrades I'm even more confident we can handle whatever the game throws at us. N.America is potentially the biggest issue as it tends to be a bit of a trek for anyone that ventures too far in. Particularly noticeable in a 3 player game without deadpool's teleport.
Our game plan is simple. We will try to create new connections in S.America, search some cities and recon Europe if we have the breathing room. This means we need to hold off on the third supply center until the recon is finished. So the second or first needs to be in London.
We get a few early plague cubes this game. I am is designated to N.America to clean up and protect it. Collecting excess cubes (more than 1) from cities not yet threatened as I pass through them works out to be a good strategy. Morgan is cleaning up Middle East and Rob (our farmer) is filling all the gaps on the shorelines effectively while connecting up S.America. Supply cubes are much more scarce on the board this game, but we seem to mostly be adequately supplying just enough for each city. We take a gamble after an epidemic that one card wont come up from 4 draws of 15. But that fails. The balance between risk and reward is a very fine line. With the ‘remove 2 plague cubes’ ration card in the deck I'm willing to risk take a few risks though.
Toward the end of the game we have 3 plagued cities, London, Istanbul, Sao Paulo (3 cubes). The risk of Sao Paulo causing much damage is low as it only has one connection and that city is well supplied. However, the plague cube on London is a surprise due to an epidemic draw. And both myself and Rob are sitting on top of it. No time to react. I can finish the game saving my buddy Rob, but I'll take a scar. Seems to be no way around it. I'm getting ready to scratch the first exposure, but then rob suddenly reminds us he's holding the ‘remove 2 plague cubes’ ration card! He removes the plague cube before my turn begins and saves me. Nice one Rob.
With the supply cubes thin on the ground we decide it's still the right time to end the game and not try for one more loop of the board. From London I use a London card to sail to Sao Paulo and put down a supply center negating the plague cubes damage to the population. The game ends with no drop in pop for any location.
Cities Plagued: Sao Paulo (3 cubes)
supply centers: 3, Sao Paulo, London, San Fran
Game Conclusion: Result - Win!
Developments - Recon Europe, connected 3 new cities in S.America
Grid size - 19
Upgrades - 6 points
Strategic Discussion:
Gameplay wise we were a well oiled machine. Mobility will be the biggest weakness as the map gets bigger.
The upgrade options felt wide open. I personally liked the idea of using the stickers that go on the infection cards - Well Stocked [if this city has 2 cubes do not remove a cube when infecting] on a city with only 2 cards in the infection deck like San Fran or Bogata. The Well Stocked upgrade has the disadvantage of being drawn from the 1/5 epidemics from the bottom. It also kind of ties up 2 cubes permanently. However it has a high roll possibility of being drawn and basically be a blank! Which is incredible! Also, I liked [if this city is in the discard pile tear up] on a city with only 1 card in the infection deck like Los Angeles or Mexico City. This removes these cities from consideration forever.
[warning spoiler Recon Europe, search result speculation and end of Feb Upgrades]
A new feature we could upgrade was permanent supply centers and the recon in Europe allows us flight in between havens and supply centers. This would significantly increase our ability to move around land areas! However, the best available site at the end of Feb was San Fran. We decided in the end it wasn’t an optimal location. Also, there were a few unknown factors. We have yet to search anything by Sea. Our group is speculating potential links through this search (which we could be wrong). So we consider a more centralised location in N. America to be the best. Also, we may end up locking down a few N.American cities with upgrades in future so the power of this permanent supply center could be greatly diminished with future decisions.
With Europe, N.America and S.America scouted we noticed there still aren’t enough cities to allow us to get more than 6 upgrade points. So to get to 7 upgrade points we’ll need Asia.
We went with lots of individual upgrades. Runner for our Instructor, Coordinator for Administrator and Courier for our Farmer. This would increase the team's mobility significantly. Also it was a bit of a fun factor over absolute strategy. Now every player had a secondary upgrade. We could all do something cool and unique!
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Upgrades:Runner - allows flight mobility for our card giver. Deliver a card to someone if needed or highly mobile response unit.
Coordinator - at first glance this seemed quite bad. But we soon realised it is both a free action and infinite! Effectively this could draw out people on adjacent spaces, when convenient OR drag a player along with you. We'll see if this ends up being an MvP ability or just never used. Worth a shot with Deadpool who can use teleports as well to bring people too him, or go to people as required.
Courier - this allows our farmer to just be more efficient and more reactive. By supplying adjacent spots it could effectively save him two actions, going in and going out, not only that he can supply places over run with plague cubes without worrying about not having enough actions to get out as well.
Future upgrade consideration -
Facilitator - which gives the ability to receive one card per turn could be good. We’d give it to Odin, but it makes his character pretty vital if he was to suddenly die it would suck. Also just being on the same spot at the same time seems to be hard enough.
Broker - which gives you the ability to trade a card of the same colour into the discard pile. Combined with Infrastructure upgrade (this player card is worth 3 cards of its colour when building a supply depot) and Foundation upgrade (this player card is worth 2 cards of its colour when building a supply depot) on player cards this makes building supply centers even easier. But do we need it??
Well stocked and Lockdown- I think destroying a card is possibly top of the list. Well Stocked is a maybe. Do we do this in N.America or S.America? Hard to say.
The end of Feb upgrade mentioned in the spoiler is also the highest priority. But requires some more thought...
