Richard (yellow), Jeff (red), Stefan (green) and myself (blue) played this challenging game on Thursday.
Final scores were Mark 80, Jeff 60, Richard 75 and Stefan 24.
AAR provided by Richard
Quite a brutal outcome in the wash.
A very close affair even with me snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory with the wrong decision on the final play. I just needed to have
placed a refinery and that would have netted 6 points for a 1 point
victory. Jeff's second loan cost him the game on one analysis, however,
he would have had fewer oil deliveries to continents (he was in 1st
place on three of them for a total of 48 points) so it was give and
take. Mark's victory was grounded in Consolidation chips (44 - more than
half his final score) which meant he was most adept at being able to
manage his portfolio of shares. Stefan fell into the Canada trap once
again and sabotaged his ability to repay a loan, but turned out to be
the King maker in the game.
This was the first game which played very smoothly and relatively
quickly (for the most part) and allowed for some proper strategy. This
is also the first game where all the Consolidation chips were purchased
and where all continents were delivered to, another sign that everyone
was playing strategically.
This was also the first (almost) error free game we've played. There was
an unfortunate error in the Wildcatter auction on the last turn. You
can't participate unless you have a pump jack in the area. Only I had a
pump jack so therefore only I would have been able to participate.
Additionally in thinking about that last auction, I think we will need a
house rule for share loans. Theoretically you can take a loan for shares
at any point in the game according to the rules. This could lead to the
ludicrous situation where on the last round Stefan (assuming he had
actually been eligible) and I could have bid for Wildcatters into
infinity knowing we could get a loan to cover the final bid (if there
ever was one), so the game would never end. There needs to be a
mechanism to prevent this.
I really like this game a lot. On one level it is very basic with a
concise set of rules. With only 7 plays as the active player and the
need to feed off the other players it really is so brutally punishing of
even a single mistake which makes it so very challenging. The new 3D
components make it look really nice on the table too which adds to the
experience. (There should be bonus points for being able to place a
fully loaded pump jack on the board without spilling it 😂).
I feel we are at the stage now with it that the rules are (mostly) down*
and we can focus on implementing a strategy which does make the game
much more enjoyable. Having said that, I feel we do need to be more
diligent and follow the sequence of play strictly to avoid making mistakes.
*The main rule still not understood by some people is grasping the
difference between drilling in a new oil field, i.e. putting down the
first pump jack vs developing an oil field.
I hope you enjoy playing Wildcatters as much as I do, as I intend to
schedule it in the future on a regular basis. I feel there is a lot more
to explore with it.
