Steam for 2

Got a chance to play some nice expansion maps for Steam:

http://boardgame.geekdo.com/boardgameexpansion/47686/age-of-steam-expansion-alabama-railways-antebellum

I previously had avoided many of the expansion maps because they all seemed to want to add their own wrinkles and mess with the basic formula.  I understand why they do this; to improve the longevity and keep people playing.  But dang it, sometimes I just wanted another map.

Anyway, I played the Alabama version with my wife.  It went really well actually.  The map was sufficiently tight.  We both reached from top to bottom by the end, but I was weighted very high towards the top and she was weighted towards the bottom.


We also played with some hybrid AoS / Steam rules.

We used the Steam goods production.  We used the Income/Shares/Locomotive chart from AoS.  We used the role selection from Steam, but put everything at half price.  And lastly for scoring we did: Income - Shares + Links and called that good enough.


I won, but only by about 6 points.  I actually really enjoyed how the income reduction acted as a great "whack-the-leader" mechanic.  And here I thought it would just be annoying.