More Wildcatters

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.