Glad you liked Scythe! I've only played twice, but I agree with you. Cool, interesting, fun decisions, that go quick. Can't wait to play again!
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31661731#p31661731:2cb76hxw said:
I currently do not plan to buy Scythe, unfortunately. It is more about perception versus reality.
My gaming "groups" are essentially work-related friends who are all virgins to modern Board games. But most of them are Nerds/Geeks. To great success I have introduced them to Funkenschlag and Pandemic. Especially Pandemic blew them away. A lot of them were amazed at how intense and immersive a simple board game can become ... and some of them definitely asked for more
I just wished I could introduce them to "Twilight Struggle". Dear God, that game is intense and IMHO a true revelation.
So I seriously need games that are quick to build up, look deceptively simple, and that I can explain in 5 Minutes to get starting. Scythe unfortunately does not look like it. Perhaps I will still buy it just for myself, because the whole Dieselpunk art is just that amzaing.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31662099#p31662099:yt1pay1p said:dio82[/url]":yt1pay1p][url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31661731#p31661731:yt1pay1p said:
I currently do not plan to buy Scythe, unfortunately. It is more about perception versus reality.
My gaming "groups" are essentially work-related friends who are all virgins to modern Board games. But most of them are Nerds/Geeks. To great success I have introduced them to Funkenschlag and Pandemic. Especially Pandemic blew them away. A lot of them were amazed at how intense and immersive a simple board game can become ... and some of them definitely asked for more
I just wished I could introduce them to "Twilight Struggle". Dear God, that game is intense and IMHO a true revelation.
So I seriously need games that are quick to build up, look deceptively simple, and that I can explain in 5 Minutes to get starting. Scythe unfortunately does not look like it. Perhaps I will still buy it just for myself, because the whole Dieselpunk art is just that amzaing.
Twilight Imperium was what my friends used to break me into boardgaming. They had a "Well either you sink or you swim" approach to adding new people to the group. I ended up being the aliens that start with a war sun and I won the game off of it.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31662567#p31662567:mx3f0e71 said:
(not that it's a bad game, but a game that takes a weekend to complete isn't exactly my idea of a gateway game)
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31666549#p31666549:1a5mxgsz said:TenaciousB[/url]":1a5mxgsz][url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31662567#p31662567:1a5mxgsz said:
(not that it's a bad game, but a game that takes a weekend to complete isn't exactly my idea of a gateway game)
Eight hours. I was a RISK player before that.
My copy of Scythe arrived yesterday. It was an off week for my tabletop RPG group, so we played that instead. It ran about three hours, and teaching it took a little longer than I’d have liked (but to be fair, I had only read the rules and not played yet either), but everyone enjoyed it. The turns went really quickly, so it never felt like the game was taking as long as it did. One aspect that everyone seemed to really enjoy was the spontaneous storytelling that resulted from trying to explain what the encounter cards were showing.
GenCon plays:
scythe - great (my kickstarter copy, which we brought & taught to some friends)
netrunner (tournament) - great game, but i did terrible in the tournament
trains: rising sun - good (girlfriend loves train games)
mystic vale - good (per the rulebook advertisement, this is their basic/intro card building game, with a more advanced game coming later)
fantahzee - boring (yahtzee with monsters)
isle of skye - good/great (bid, tile placement, with victory points based on different criteria each round)
star trek five year mission - boring (dice chucking & card flipping)
valeria card kingdoms - good/great (may replace machi koro in our game group)
elfenroad - bad (just not exciting and too luck dependent)
preordered after plays/previews: Mystic Vale (gift for girlfriend), Star Trek: Ascendancy (can't pay $100 MSRP for a 3 player game, but got it preordered @ CSI for $63, which is almost palatable -- additional players require expansions @ $35 MSRP each).
scythe - great (my kickstarter copy, which we brought & taught to some friends)
netrunner (tournament) - great game, but i did terrible in the tournament
trains: rising sun - good (girlfriend loves train games)
mystic vale - good (per the rulebook advertisement, this is their basic/intro card building game, with a more advanced game coming later)
fantahzee - boring (yahtzee with monsters)
isle of skye - good/great (bid, tile placement, with victory points based on different criteria each round)
star trek five year mission - boring (dice chucking & card flipping)
valeria card kingdoms - good/great (may replace machi koro in our game group)
elfenroad - bad (just not exciting and too luck dependent)
preordered after plays/previews: Mystic Vale (gift for girlfriend), Star Trek: Ascendancy (can't pay $100 MSRP for a 3 player game, but got it preordered @ CSI for $63, which is almost palatable -- additional players require expansions @ $35 MSRP each).
My Gen Con report.
Much of my time was spent either running or participating in playtests, but I did see and play lots of new and new-to-me titles.
Kraftwagen: Enjoyable, and a surprise to me. For some reason I thought it was a much heavier game; I think maybe I was confusing it with Kanban.
The Networks: I think the consensus of those I played with was "okay." It is funny, and there are some great choices about how the theme impacts the numeric values of cards, but most of what's here I've seen done as well or better elsewhere. I'd play it again, but don't need to own it.
Potion Explosion: Fantastic. It had been on my wish list going in, and I bought it right away and very much enjoyed my first play. Light but with room for thinking, and very attractive.
Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails: Heavier than its predecessor. I'd say a step above the other "complicated TTR" entries such as Märklin, Team Asia, and Pennsylvania. Players have to juggle both ships and trains, which have separate cards, separate routes, and are separately token-limited, so it's a balancing act. Hand management is quite a bit trickier, and there's some room for screwage in how you choose to refill the cards on offer.
Dominion Empires: Yes, it's more Dominion. Shares a lot in common with Adventures. The new twists include card piles that get better/more expensive with each card purchased, cards that incur debt and are paid off over multiple turns, and an ongoing game-rule-altering effect that is drawn at the beginning of each game. Very good, but I have enough Dominion already.
Junk Art: A fun dexterity game. It's the typical "stack this collection of objects" idea, but with a randomly-selected collection of rules that vary from round to round. You might be stacking as quickly as you can, or you might be taking turns choosing pieces to place trying to get matching shapes or colors to collect in your sculpture.
Onitama: My first play, though I've seen it tabled frequently. It's short, it's clever. It's also an abstract strategy game, which means it's not really for me, though I wouldn't turn it down if someone wanted to play.
Tiny Epic Western: A nice little worker placement game. I like the incorporation of three-card stud poker in the mechanisms, and how that allows for conservative or risky play (reminiscent of, say, Witches' Brew). We were only two players, and I think this needs the full complement of four to shine so that we would have more dueling.
Captain Sonar: Shut Up & Sit Down called this their favorite of the con. I can see why. It is a real-time team vs. team event in which each team member has their own task to perform. It is reminiscent of Space Cadets Dice Duels, but with dry erase markers and amped-up Battleship coordinate guessing as the core mechanism. I played the radio operator and had a blast, but don't really know how the other roles worked because I was focused on my own thing. I'd not buy this one because it really needs 8 players to play well, and I'd never get it played.
Ice Cool: Another buzzed-about dexterity game. It's cute, and I'm horrible at it. Flicking games have never gone well for me. If you like them, check this one out.
Vast: An asymmetrical dungeon crawler. I had backed the KS campaign for this one, and picked up my copy at Gen Con. No regrets! It's fantastic. Every role plays completely differently, and yet it seems to retain balance. I have only played the Knight, and am looking forward to exploring the other choices.
Happy to elaborate on any of these upon request.
Much of my time was spent either running or participating in playtests, but I did see and play lots of new and new-to-me titles.
Kraftwagen: Enjoyable, and a surprise to me. For some reason I thought it was a much heavier game; I think maybe I was confusing it with Kanban.
The Networks: I think the consensus of those I played with was "okay." It is funny, and there are some great choices about how the theme impacts the numeric values of cards, but most of what's here I've seen done as well or better elsewhere. I'd play it again, but don't need to own it.
Potion Explosion: Fantastic. It had been on my wish list going in, and I bought it right away and very much enjoyed my first play. Light but with room for thinking, and very attractive.
Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails: Heavier than its predecessor. I'd say a step above the other "complicated TTR" entries such as Märklin, Team Asia, and Pennsylvania. Players have to juggle both ships and trains, which have separate cards, separate routes, and are separately token-limited, so it's a balancing act. Hand management is quite a bit trickier, and there's some room for screwage in how you choose to refill the cards on offer.
Dominion Empires: Yes, it's more Dominion. Shares a lot in common with Adventures. The new twists include card piles that get better/more expensive with each card purchased, cards that incur debt and are paid off over multiple turns, and an ongoing game-rule-altering effect that is drawn at the beginning of each game. Very good, but I have enough Dominion already.
Junk Art: A fun dexterity game. It's the typical "stack this collection of objects" idea, but with a randomly-selected collection of rules that vary from round to round. You might be stacking as quickly as you can, or you might be taking turns choosing pieces to place trying to get matching shapes or colors to collect in your sculpture.
Onitama: My first play, though I've seen it tabled frequently. It's short, it's clever. It's also an abstract strategy game, which means it's not really for me, though I wouldn't turn it down if someone wanted to play.
Tiny Epic Western: A nice little worker placement game. I like the incorporation of three-card stud poker in the mechanisms, and how that allows for conservative or risky play (reminiscent of, say, Witches' Brew). We were only two players, and I think this needs the full complement of four to shine so that we would have more dueling.
Captain Sonar: Shut Up & Sit Down called this their favorite of the con. I can see why. It is a real-time team vs. team event in which each team member has their own task to perform. It is reminiscent of Space Cadets Dice Duels, but with dry erase markers and amped-up Battleship coordinate guessing as the core mechanism. I played the radio operator and had a blast, but don't really know how the other roles worked because I was focused on my own thing. I'd not buy this one because it really needs 8 players to play well, and I'd never get it played.
Ice Cool: Another buzzed-about dexterity game. It's cute, and I'm horrible at it. Flicking games have never gone well for me. If you like them, check this one out.
Vast: An asymmetrical dungeon crawler. I had backed the KS campaign for this one, and picked up my copy at Gen Con. No regrets! It's fantastic. Every role plays completely differently, and yet it seems to retain balance. I have only played the Knight, and am looking forward to exploring the other choices.
Happy to elaborate on any of these upon request.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31675287#p31675287:mx47exp2 said:
This was my #1 interest going into GenCon, and while I wasn't able demo it myself, I did watch a group demo it (in the booth, not in the KS room), and bought it after 5 minutes. Haven't been able to play it yet, but I'm pretty excited about it.
Thanks JonBob! Mind elaborating on Captain Sonar? I didn't give it a thought until you said it needs 8 players - my game nights sometimes have 7+ people so our options are either split into two groups, or play 7 Wonders.
Edit: and Vast? Looks pretty sweet.
Edit: and Vast? Looks pretty sweet.
Captain Sonar is a team vs. team game, in which the four members of a team each have very different roles to play. The object is to sink the other sub. I got drafted onto a team of people who knew each other and had played before, so I was mostly trying not to drag the team down and focused pretty hard on my role as radio operator. I have read about the game, and have a vague idea of what the other roles were doing, but mostly I was concerned about myself and the captain.
The captain steers the sub by calling out cardinal directions and marking his path on a sea map in front of him. There are some land masses that get in the way and limit movement. When various special abilities are ready (I'm not sure the details of how they get ready, but it has to do with the other two roles and it takes several movements to ready something), the captain can call "stop" and execute them. These include sonar, to get some information on the other sub's whereabouts, and firing a torpedo at a particular coordinate.
But to know where the other sub is? That's where the radio operator's job comes in. My role was to listen to the other team's captain calling out orders, and mark on my map where he is going. Of course, I don't know where he started, but the game gives you a transparent overlay you can draw on and slide around, so I can see where he might be based on whether his path would overlap land or not. There is some further deduction possible via the hints that sonar gives. Once I have a good idea, I communicate a target to the captain.
When things go wrong in engineering, sometimes we have to surface and make repairs. When this happens, the other team can keep working, but we have to stop what we're doing and all collaborate on a little task before we can dive again. This means I have to be listening and remembering what is said on the other side, or else I'll lose them.
It is apparently possible to play with fewer than four on a side (six seems feasible, but I'm not sure how the roles get shared), but the experience is clearly intended to be 8 players. It's frenetic, tense, and fun.
I hope to be able to try another role in Vast tomorrow night, so I'll wait to chime in on that until I have a couple different perspectives to draw on.
The captain steers the sub by calling out cardinal directions and marking his path on a sea map in front of him. There are some land masses that get in the way and limit movement. When various special abilities are ready (I'm not sure the details of how they get ready, but it has to do with the other two roles and it takes several movements to ready something), the captain can call "stop" and execute them. These include sonar, to get some information on the other sub's whereabouts, and firing a torpedo at a particular coordinate.
But to know where the other sub is? That's where the radio operator's job comes in. My role was to listen to the other team's captain calling out orders, and mark on my map where he is going. Of course, I don't know where he started, but the game gives you a transparent overlay you can draw on and slide around, so I can see where he might be based on whether his path would overlap land or not. There is some further deduction possible via the hints that sonar gives. Once I have a good idea, I communicate a target to the captain.
When things go wrong in engineering, sometimes we have to surface and make repairs. When this happens, the other team can keep working, but we have to stop what we're doing and all collaborate on a little task before we can dive again. This means I have to be listening and remembering what is said on the other side, or else I'll lose them.
It is apparently possible to play with fewer than four on a side (six seems feasible, but I'm not sure how the roles get shared), but the experience is clearly intended to be 8 players. It's frenetic, tense, and fun.
I hope to be able to try another role in Vast tomorrow night, so I'll wait to chime in on that until I have a couple different perspectives to draw on.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31675355#p31675355:c7wibdqv said:
My copy got delivered to work today. I can't wait to get home and try it with my wife!
Let us know how it goes! I'm intrigued. But also have too many games. But am still intrigued. Sigh.
Picked up Scythe after comments here and should be awaiting for me when I get home tomorrow. Hope to play it this weekend.
Backed Tiny Epic Western. Even have the playmat already. Looking forward to that one.
Dungeon Buster got recently, but only played it once. Will depend on the grounp I think to enjoy it more. Quick filler game.
Played Mysterium a few times. Has been great. Everyone has enjoyed it and hope to get more people to play ghosts.
AssassinCon arrived, no chance to play yet.
Got some other KS games coming soon. Few have been delayed. Should be a busy winter. Summer does not end until late September for us.
Backed Tiny Epic Western. Even have the playmat already. Looking forward to that one.
Dungeon Buster got recently, but only played it once. Will depend on the grounp I think to enjoy it more. Quick filler game.
Played Mysterium a few times. Has been great. Everyone has enjoyed it and hope to get more people to play ghosts.
AssassinCon arrived, no chance to play yet.
Got some other KS games coming soon. Few have been delayed. Should be a busy winter. Summer does not end until late September for us.
Can you let us know what you think of Tiny Epic Western? Curious about that one.
I backed Vast after listening to an interview with its designer on the Game Design Round Table podcast. I’ve been looking forward to it, and I’m happy to hear that it turned out pretty good. Looking forward to my copy’s arrival.
Backers get Tiny Epic Western at the end of September. It's on the boat from China, cruising at 19.2 knots (has a couple stops).
If an accusation was made that this is an overly complicated addition to the TTR formula and expansions are now just milking it to death, what would be your opinion?[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31675287#p31675287:wm6hdabv said:
I'd disagree for a few reasons. This isn't an expansion, for one, but rather a standalone game. The new bits don't feel extraneous or tacked on. They are fairly core to the experience. I can't comment on the world map side of the board, which I understand has a couple extra rules, but the Great Lakes side is straightforward.
That said, I do have a big problem with this game: the price. The MSRP is $80, which is pretty ridiculous for this weight of game. There is a lot of plastic in here, but come on.
That said, I do have a big problem with this game: the price. The MSRP is $80, which is pretty ridiculous for this weight of game. There is a lot of plastic in here, but come on.
I am gonna order it this weekend. It just look too up my alley to pass up.
I played Vast again last night.
This time around it was the standard four-player game, with me in the role of the Goblins. My end impression is that this thing is balanced on a knife's edge. At the beginning of the game it looked like I was going to steamroll everyone, but the Cave saw this and played events to help the Knight, slowing me down. The Dragon just couldn't get anything going, and the Cave was out of control and, it seemed, very likely to crush us all. But then the Dragon got a Hiss engine going, and by knocking me off the board turn after turn and eating a Goblin each time, was able to quickly ramp up to awaken just barely after the Cave started its collapse. The Knight then slayed the Dragon, winning the game on the same turn in which the Dragon would have been able to escape and the Cave would have been able to collapse fully. I ended a distant fourth.
I am very excited to try all the other roles. This is a pretty great game.
This time around it was the standard four-player game, with me in the role of the Goblins. My end impression is that this thing is balanced on a knife's edge. At the beginning of the game it looked like I was going to steamroll everyone, but the Cave saw this and played events to help the Knight, slowing me down. The Dragon just couldn't get anything going, and the Cave was out of control and, it seemed, very likely to crush us all. But then the Dragon got a Hiss engine going, and by knocking me off the board turn after turn and eating a Goblin each time, was able to quickly ramp up to awaken just barely after the Cave started its collapse. The Knight then slayed the Dragon, winning the game on the same turn in which the Dragon would have been able to escape and the Cave would have been able to collapse fully. I ended a distant fourth.
I am very excited to try all the other roles. This is a pretty great game.
That sounds pretty fun. How does it manifest? Just as a deckbuilding game with pieces? Or is there some other mechanic which makes it more than "Dominion where every player has a different deck"?
Vast? It's not a deckbuilder at all. The roles all work differently, but none of them gain cards into a deck. Some of the roles don't even have cards.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31689317#p31689317:19jp234r said:
The Knight has a limited number of action points ("hero cubes") to assign to stat increases like movement, number of encounters, strength, and various equipment. The cubes are reassigned each turn, and she gains more of them by doing sidequests that earn XP. She moves around the face-up tiles on the board and interacts with stuff there. She needs to balance leveling up with running towards and injuring the Dragon.
The Goblins have three tribes, each of which varies in population from turn to turn, and which mostly move around the face-down ("dark") tiles. They draw a "war" card each turn which adds to the tribes' populations, allows them to draw monster cards (upgrades) and secrets cards (actions), and then take an action with each of the three tribes. They need to pop up and dart quickly toward the Knight over and over to whittle her down.
The Dragon has a game based around a deck of Power cards, which he draws a hand from each turn and spends to activate powers. His hand size and armor rating rise as he completes tasks like eating goblins and picking up treasure on the map. This also feeds into his victory condition of "waking up" and then getting to the cave entrance to escape.
The Cave places new map tiles on the board, and its gameplay revolves around drawing tokens from a bag, based on the stuff currently available on the map. It wants to get attractive stuff like treasure out on the map in order to draw more tokens, protect the stuff from being claimed by other players, and to slow everyone down enough to exhaust the tile supply and collapse on everyone else.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31689625#p31689625:1ejaxf0f said:
Oh, I see! Your talk of "engine building" threw me off. I like the sound of it, really original — thanks for the writeups!
Sounds cool! What do you think about replayability beyond just trying each role? I guess I mean in terms of games playing out very differently each time?
Also, how's downtime between turns?
Also, how's downtime between turns?
Hard to say whether games will feel samey. There certainly is a fair amount of variety in the way the cave could be laid out, and I haven't explored the terrain tiles yet. But honestly, if I get one or two really fun plays of each role before I get bored of this, that's a better value than many of the games I buy!
Downtime is somewhat significant, but it doesn't feel too bad since a lot of actions any player takes directly affect other players, so I stayed engaged pretty much the whole time. Potion Explosion, the other new one I'm excited about that I played last night, is much shorter but feels like it has way more downtime since player interaction is so limited.
Downtime is somewhat significant, but it doesn't feel too bad since a lot of actions any player takes directly affect other players, so I stayed engaged pretty much the whole time. Potion Explosion, the other new one I'm excited about that I played last night, is much shorter but feels like it has way more downtime since player interaction is so limited.
Got my copy of Scythe yesterday (they had some KS copies to spare last week online).
I get my copy of Continental Divide and and Gallerist Deluxe tomorrow. Hope to play at least one of them (and/or AssassinCon) on the table this Saturday.
I get my copy of Continental Divide and and Gallerist Deluxe tomorrow. Hope to play at least one of them (and/or AssassinCon) on the table this Saturday.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31691367#p31691367:2h3epcui said:
Thanks. And yes, it's funny I even ask about replays because I agree - 8 plays of a game is better than...95% of the games I own! I think Dominion and 7 Wonders are the only ones I've played 8 or more times.
Sufinsil, hope you like Scythe! Let us know what you think.
It's actually super easy for me to know this since I've been tracking plays for the past five years.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31692197#p31692197:1atxy8s7 said:
https://boardgamegeek.com/plays/bygame/ ... /boardgame
There are a bunch of games I love that don't even make the first page... including Zendo, my all-time favorite. That's crazy.
Never heard of Zendo. What makes it your favorite?
edit: you've played a LOT of games, JonBob. Wow.
edit: you've played a LOT of games, JonBob. Wow.
Zendo is an inductive reasoning game. There aren't many of them out there; Zendo and Eleusis are probably the two most well-known. Zendo was designed to be played with Looney Pyramids, though it can be played with pretty much any collection of objects.
The idea is that one player knows a secret rule, which describes certain collections/arrangements of objects ("koans"). The other players compete to try to guess the rule by building new koans and finding out if they fit the rule or not. The game mirrors the scientific method; players will form hypotheses, then test them by creating koans, which will either support or reject the hypothesis. It is an elegant game, and makes me feel clever.
The idea is that one player knows a secret rule, which describes certain collections/arrangements of objects ("koans"). The other players compete to try to guess the rule by building new koans and finding out if they fit the rule or not. The game mirrors the scientific method; players will form hypotheses, then test them by creating koans, which will either support or reject the hypothesis. It is an elegant game, and makes me feel clever.
The Board Game Geek poll claims this game is best for 2 players but also recommended for 3 and 4. What do you think?[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31675287#p31675287:2d5qms6r said:
I have no issues with how it plays across the player range. The level of player interaction is quite low, so I know where that recommendation is coming from: the board state changes a lot between turns if you have four players, so you can't do a lot of planning, which in turn means more thinking on player turns and thus more downtime. With thinky players, I could see this becoming annoying, but it wasn't a problem for me. Nothing breaks at four players; it's just a slower game.
Played two more games of Scythe tonight at player count 3, and it was a blast. Everyone really enjoyed the game. Yes, it's an engine-building efficiency game, but my goodness does it play out well. Actions just feel good, and having efficient turns is fun, win or lose. I haven't played enough to really know what I'm headed for - I usually base my initial strategy around my objective cards and my racial bonus, and kinda go from there.
Combat is definitely scarce. More than any of us thought. It's really an engine-building game.
I love the different factions and the choices they bring to the game. We all agree that Russia is strong, and Saxony is weak (even though they seem strong at the get-go). The Internet's popular opinion is that Poland is weak, but I think they are quite strong. Crimea is 2 for 2 in wins for us; getting cards and turning them into resources is huge.
Just a fun game. Intimidating to new players, but really great once you've got one game under your belt. (Most games can say the same, I know...) Good stuff.
Combat is definitely scarce. More than any of us thought. It's really an engine-building game.
I love the different factions and the choices they bring to the game. We all agree that Russia is strong, and Saxony is weak (even though they seem strong at the get-go). The Internet's popular opinion is that Poland is weak, but I think they are quite strong. Crimea is 2 for 2 in wins for us; getting cards and turning them into resources is huge.
Just a fun game. Intimidating to new players, but really great once you've got one game under your belt. (Most games can say the same, I know...) Good stuff.
BloodyCactus
Ars Praefectus
got my Big Trouble in Little China Legendary this morning. the rubber mat inside smells like warm sick left to fester in the backseat of the car on a hot day.
Got my first play of Scythe last night, 4p. That's a fantastic game. The rules and set up took a while, but once we actually started playing, it moved along very rapidly. Even our most Analysis Paralysis prone player didn't take more than a couple of minutes per turn. We felt all of the factions we played (Rusviet, Crimea, Nordic, Poland) were fairly even, but the Nords were definitely the weakest side. Their special abilities and movement are just...meh. Poland felt strongest in my mind - when that player picked up Speed, he was able to Submerge his mechs to any lake on the board and be a constant threat to everyone - he successfully bottled up the Rusviet player. Crimea (me) definitely felt strong in the ability to use cards as resources early, and I definitely needed it as my mech deployment cost me 4 metal at the beginning. I also had one of the two useful military victories in the game, where I pushed the Poland player off two oil resources, and promptly used them in an upgrade in the same turn. The other significant military victory was when the Poland player evicted the Rusviet player from the Factory on the last turn and triggered endgame with that win. There were a couple other skirmishes, but most of the game was just...maneuver and threat. I managed to pull a fairly hefty victory, but only because I managed to bump my popularity up into the second tier shortly before endgame. No one realized how strong the multiplier was going to be.
Excellent, excellent game. Looking forward to playing it again.
Excellent, excellent game. Looking forward to playing it again.
Played Scythe with 5.
Same for us. Setup and rules is what felt the longest. 2 others had watched videos on how to play, so that sped things up. Took at most 3 hours to play or less.
For a few turns Crimea did not realize their faction ability was limited to 1 card exchange vs unlimited. It felt a little strong to me which made me check it again, as they were quickly doing a lot of advanced actions.
I (Nordic) swam accross to the villages and produced 2 more people. I had a slow start because of that, as you really need Mechs to make your moves efficient with villages. My player mat was the 3 metal mech, but my home area encounter that I drew had me subduing a rogue from a cow pasture, thus gaining a mech that could then move my 4 workers on the right. (The unpopular option was to send the cow directly at the Mech and see what happened...).
Failed a battle I started to try to snag 2 lumber. Lost 2nd battle trying to claim territory around the factory for my objective (0 factory cards, control 2 territory adjacent to it). Should have tried to get better combat cards and a little more power. And forgot to use my mech combat ability before that 2nd combat.
I had my Armory with upgrade enlist, thus getting a bunch of power with that in addition to bolster. I was close to cap before, but had spent some on that 2nd battle. Once I got cap, and my 3rd star, I secured my 3 other stars with 2 combats and my objective on a single turn. Won by 1 Coin. 4 of us had Tier 1 popularity while Crimea (2nd place) had Tier 2.
Looking forward to more games and trying out different things.
Metal coins are great as are the upgraded resource components. We played on the big sized board.
Same for us. Setup and rules is what felt the longest. 2 others had watched videos on how to play, so that sped things up. Took at most 3 hours to play or less.
For a few turns Crimea did not realize their faction ability was limited to 1 card exchange vs unlimited. It felt a little strong to me which made me check it again, as they were quickly doing a lot of advanced actions.
I (Nordic) swam accross to the villages and produced 2 more people. I had a slow start because of that, as you really need Mechs to make your moves efficient with villages. My player mat was the 3 metal mech, but my home area encounter that I drew had me subduing a rogue from a cow pasture, thus gaining a mech that could then move my 4 workers on the right. (The unpopular option was to send the cow directly at the Mech and see what happened...).
Failed a battle I started to try to snag 2 lumber. Lost 2nd battle trying to claim territory around the factory for my objective (0 factory cards, control 2 territory adjacent to it). Should have tried to get better combat cards and a little more power. And forgot to use my mech combat ability before that 2nd combat.
I had my Armory with upgrade enlist, thus getting a bunch of power with that in addition to bolster. I was close to cap before, but had spent some on that 2nd battle. Once I got cap, and my 3rd star, I secured my 3 other stars with 2 combats and my objective on a single turn. Won by 1 Coin. 4 of us had Tier 1 popularity while Crimea (2nd place) had Tier 2.
Looking forward to more games and trying out different things.
Metal coins are great as are the upgraded resource components. We played on the big sized board.
[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=31711051#p31711051:2lf1ek8f said:
Crimea is very sorry for its mistake
Definitely felt like multiplayer solitaire for the first runthrough, but that did help things to proceed a bit more quickly since we were basically able to plan what we wanted to do while others were taking turns. I wonder how many games end with someone taking several stars all at once (as was the case in our game, with Sufinsil taking three stars his last turn) versus only one or two.