Friday, June 17, 2016
Upgrade - SOLO game reportThe solo game pairs
your usual player mat with the back of an unused player mat, enabling you to manage a ghost player through cards and dice.
The setup is as per a 2-player game. At the
outset I had to decide whether I wanted to max out on high scoring solutions or to get my points from integration. I opted
for the integration approach so I needed to keep in mind the additional workload that I would have to manage later on in the
game. The total number of users in my randomly
dealt business areas was only 21, giving a pretty low initial income of 35 credits, so I elected to activate all 5 which can
be challenging but given the focus on integration would hopefully pay off. The game lasted 40 minutes after which time I scored a total of 163 points, with no credits remaining
(after paying off the loan and workload costs) and one penalty for an unused commitment. What about next time? Well I think
I needed an additional connection and more lobbying, as well as more "additional action" bonus choices. Maybe I
would aim for just a single level of integration and more points from the solutions and credits.
An overview of the game progress follows: Year 1: I connected one of my
Administration work-groups through to the Warehousing area to increase put my income into the 40 credit bracket, Upgraded
the Administration system to the silver option and lastly Tuned the Administration solution to reduce my workload cost down to 0. To get this completed I also needed to take a loan, hoping I would be able to repay. In parallel,
the ghost player added a bronze Manufacturing system and also did a Connect and Tune. Year 2
saw me make another connection, upgrade my Warehousing solution and do some lobbying, whilst the ghost player did a lot of
lobbying and also upgraded their Warehousing solution. We had two unused workers at the end of the year so we would take a
hit in year 3 with 2 less with which to work. Year 3 I traded one of my influence in for a bonus extra
turn which I used for lobbying. I did one other lobby and 2 Upgrades during the year. The ghost player managed an Upgrade,
a connect and a tune action. Year 4 and the start of phase II of the game meant that solutions not upgraded
would cost one worker to maintain meaning a total of 3 workers used before we got down to the actions. By the end of the year
I had all 5 solutions upgraded and my Administration solution on tech level III but the ghost player had still only 3 solutions
upgraded. Year 5, planning for integration, I used one of my influence tokens for an integration bonus.
I added another connection, did some lobbying and placed one level of integration across all business areas. The ghost player
flipped two upgrade tiles and tuned. Year 6 and the ghost player took first player, making it more challenging
to plan my actions. I once again used one of my influence tokens for an integration bonus and succeeded in adding a second
layer of integration to 4 of my business areas. I nearly dropped the ball on this one and integrated all 5 but then realized
that I would not have enough credits to pay for the workload costs so instead went with the 4. the ghost player did a little
tuning and lobbying.
8:14 am cest
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