Tom Vasel calls out "Joyless, analytical" gamers

Cracked me up.

Vasel likes his ameritrash, really. You can see it in his rankings.

You Go Tom. I'm calling out people who don't let me win.
The bastards.

Steve"JoylessCurmudgeon"Avery

I much preferred Vasel's written reviews to his video ones, but I have to say that this was pretty entertaining and I'd watch other X v. Y v. Z stuff if he makes it.

Coincidentally, I've actually been wanting to ask for a while: is there a F:AT consensus on best/favorite train game? I've never played one and have been getting curious. Vasel likes Steam followed by Railways of the World. What do y'all think?

Very nice...

the best train game is whatever one you can play with non-train-gamers....


Age of steam and the 1000000 versions that have been spawned by the fact that Martin Wallis is a pain to work with and everyone else interested in train games is a cock, is really more of a pickup and deliver game than a train game.

The 18XX series looks to be the best "Game" out there.

I am always down for a nostalgic game of Rail Baron, that is until all the railroads sell and the game gets lame.

Also the crayon rail games are cool too... cuz you use crayons.

-M

My personal favorite are the crayon games because you get to draw your track and you have actual deliveries to make. I just wish there was a little more interaction between the players (although I suppose there could be...for instance, if you build a link into blah blah, I'll ride your rails). Of those, I think I like Iron Dragon the most because of the ships and foremen...both add different elements of strategy to the game (for instance, in your opening cards you get a couple of deliveries across the map...with the ships you can make them).

After that is Railroad Tycoon. I like the wrinkles the cards throw into the game.

After that is probably Rail Baron. I like buying up the familiar railroad names, although I hate the endgame.

Never played any of the 18XX series.

What I would really like to see in a railroad game is where you get more of a chance to be a bastard. Intimidating people into selling their land to you. Hosing them on deals where you try to be "honest". Sabotaging other people's rails. Maybe they could do a Golden Spike game with these elements. I don't think any of the rail games capture the essence of just how difficult it was to forge a rail across the country.

mikoyan wrote:

My personal favorite are the crayon games because you get to draw your track and you have actual deliveries to make. I just wish there was a little more interaction between the players (although I suppose there could be...for instance, if you build a link into blah blah, I'll ride your rails). Of those, I think I like Iron Dragon the most because of the ships and foremen...both add different elements of strategy to the game (for instance, in your opening cards you get a couple of deliveries across the map...with the ships you can make them).

I didn't like IRON DRAGON, and I played a ton of those crayon rail games from Mayfair. I thought the ships and foremen were dumb. Trolls and shit? That's not peanut butter in my chocolate--it's just pee. Fantasy settings and trains mix like, oh, trains in a fantasy setting. Some of the crayon rails maps realy suck--Japan and Australia come to mind. One is just way too cramped, the other has a huge fucking hole in the middle. EURORAILS is the best one, followed by LUNAR RAILS (quiet you! I know it sounds like a fantasy setting! Quiet I said!) and EMPIRE BUILDER (USA). Try it yourself, by doing a "Save Link As" on this . This is an MSI so don't flip out if the world ends.

mikoyan wrote:

After that is Railroad Tycoon. I like the wrinkles the cards throw into the game.

After that is probably Rail Baron. I like buying up the familiar railroad names, although I hate the endgame.

I want to play RAILROAD TYCOON. This looks like it brings the nasty. Barnes, will your put one of your hojillion got-for-free train games up for trade and share the love?

mikoyan wrote:

Never played any of the 18XX series.

Me neither, dammit. What's the one I'm supposed to like? 1856 or something? Can someone real start marketing these things, so I can figure out whom to give my money to?

mikoyan wrote:

What I would really like to see in a railroad game is where you get more of a chance to be a bastard. Intimidating people into selling their land to you. Hosing them on deals where you try to be "honest". Sabotaging other people's rails. Maybe they could do a Golden Spike game with these elements. I don't think any of the rail games capture the essence of just how difficult it was to forge a rail across the country.

You should toss in a Misery Track à la AGE OF RENAISSANCE so you can measure just how fucking mean you are to the Chinese, Native Americans, blacks, and so forth. It won't effect who wins, of course, it's just nice to keep track of.

----Meanwhile, on topic----
The best part of the vid is when Vasel says that he doesn't like the gamers that like AGE OF STEAM. "Oh, I'm probably not talking about you, though--you're great."

jeb wrote:

Fantasy settings and trains mix like, oh, trains in a fantasy setting.

This is actually a pretty awesome idea actually, check out China Miéville's Iron Council and other steampunk novels. Fantasy isn't limited to medieval times and Middle-Earth.

I have not played Lunar Rails but maybe one of these days I will. I'm trying not to buy games that are like games that I already own. I have Empire Builder and Eurorails, like both of those well enough, although I will agree with you that Eurorails is a little better than Empire Builder. Nice mix of deliveries, the map size feels about right, there is enough space so there aren't the bottlenecks. Empire Builder is a close second, especially with the addition of Mexico (I heard it wasn't so good without Mexico). Australia rails is a third. Nice mix, but the empty middle is a bit offputting, as you can't make an intermediate delivery to get where you really want to go. China Rails is the same way. All of hte major cities are to one side of the map which pretty much forces you to make alot of short deliveries or roll the dice on one of the longer deliveries. India Rails has too many rivers in inconvenient spots, making for a cramped map. Russia Rails is nice just for the reason that you deliver tanks and I like how they handle post-Communist Russia. Martian Rails is nice but the map is unforgiving. Japan Rails just sucks balls. As I said, I like Iron Dragon. I wish they would incorporate ships and foremen in the other games.

I would love to see a Great Lakes rails, where they incorporate ships at least. There's enough in this area that they could conceivably do it.

That was awesome. I felt, for the first time, like I was seeing the real Tom Vasel. And he looks like a pretty cool guy.

He's right about Age of Steam. Fuck that game. Tom is right, it's for the Clearclaw's of the world.


Railroad Tycoon/Railways of the World is the best one by far imo. It looks good, plays good and is forgiving enough for a casual group but isn't tightly scripted and doesn't pull the leader back into place all the time.

The best map for it is the Europe one imo. Eastern US sucks balls.

I've always liked the Dice Tower (at least parts of the podcast---esp Moritz Eggert's stuff) and thought Tom's reviews were often helpful and have gotten better over time. Never understood the attitude vs. Tom...

And he does like his Ameritrash--even if not the term.

Too bad STEAM doesn't have Chooples.

tom needs to ditch the tache, it gives him a certain look. you probably know the type of look i mean. it's not a look that anyone really should be sporting.

He should either go with a handlebar, a fu manchu, or just a full beard. Either of those would go great with his Hawaiian shirts.

I never understand the anti-Vasel hate either. He comes across as more positive than a lot of people but his average ratings at BGG is 6.11, which doesn't even round up to a weak 7. And he's consistent, so you just have to mentally translate "not my favorite" to "it sucks" for the full F:AT experience.