Two New Age of Steam Expansions from Alban Viard for Spiel 09

Alban Viard keeps finding new things to do with the Age of Steam engine, and this year’s releases will take gamers to the Netherlands and Madagascar. Age of Steam: Holland, for 3-4 players, restricts the yellow cities behind hexes composed of polders – that is, land created by reclaiming it from the waters surrounding the country. Players can’t build on polders, which cost $3, until the game’s midpoint, so this expansion effectively has two beginning periods. “Your network has to be ready for that new hope of yellow cities,” says Viard. “The topology of the map is very difficult since you can be blocked by other players if you do not take enough care at certain points.”

Madagascar might seem like a poor setting for a railroad game given that it has only one railroad link in real life between Manakara and the capital, Antananarivo, but Viard views that absence and the country’s poverty as special challenges for gamers to overcome. “The actions on this map are not good ones but bad, such as Locomotive and no build, or Last Player,” he says. The expansion includes eight negative actions, but only one more than the number of players, which ranges from three to six, will be available on each turn.

Viard will have 150 numbered sets of these expansions available at Spiel 09 and 50 sets for sale by mail outside the convention. At Spiel, the expansions cost €25, while the cost of a set plus shipping to the U.S. is $40. “I am able to ship everywhere,” he says, so ask for shipping costs if you want to reserve a copy. Anyone interested in preordering a copy, whether for pick-up at Spiel or elsewhere, can write to Viard for additional details.

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