Leaving Earth 10, a medium scenario

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One of my unstated goals for the remainder of the year is to get a 10th play of Leaving Earth. This is no more a desire to align the numbers on my yearly Mastery Challenge, "10" is a 2-digit number. This also bumps me to a dime on Leaving Earth plays. Probably not the greatest reason to play a game, so here's another reason, probably also not that great.

In the interest of learning spreasheets in general and Google Sheets in particular, these missions are planned out on this set of Google sheets. Not that I don't anything about spreadsheets, it's just been many years since I've done anything interesting with them.

Missions

  1. 7 Working Probe/Capsule on Mars
  2. 6 Reveal Venus Location
  3. 5 Reveal Mars Location
  4. 4 Reveal Moon Location
  5. 4 Man to Earth Orbit and Back
  6. 2 Man to Space and Back

Advancements

  • Landing
  • Probe

1956 through 1959

Purchase:

  • Soyuz advancement
  • Juno advancement
  • 5 Juno rockets

1963

Mars landing attempt can now proceed. I have all the gear I need to get the craft to Mars: 2 Soyuz, an Atlas, and a Probe. The Soyuz and Atlas are fully tested. Rendezvous has one more outcome which will be tested before the probe separates for landing. Landing has not been tested at all, but that can be done while the Mars craft is in flight.

1966 Mars landing

Every went really smooth, all the necessary testing was completed while this probe was in flight, picked up the reveal and the landing on the same turn.

1968 finishes wwith Venus Reveal

Once I had the Advancements ready, the systematic testing let me get stuff into orbit with little difficulty. For example, I sent the Mars expedition off in 1963, and had plenty of time to test Rendezvous and Landing. Once I got to Mars it was easy-peasy.

AAR

Using a spreadshet really helps this game, and not just for single mission planning. The real key is running a calendar schedule to induce synergies between all the missions. It should be possible to create such a sheet for printing, to use in face-to-face games.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.