Does anyone know a game with a similar basic gameplay mechanic to Kingsburg but with different building mechanics or something like that? I love Kingsburg -- everything except for prioritizing which buildings to go for is super simple and I think it'd be a great game to help me expand my current groups interest in board games that aren't Arkham Horror but I think that a lot of the building trees are just traps which sucks for new people until they get a few games under their belt. The way the main roll dice and spend them in different ways to get material is super fun IMO, and I like the monster invasion mechanic.
@TehSloth Take a look at Kingsport Festival? I think it's supposed to be similar to Kingsburg, but with a Mythos theme, where the players are all cultists. Not sure if the mechanic is you dislike is still present or not.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
I've only played like three games of Sentinels, so obviously I am super ill-equipped to judge, but in our first game, my friend made tremendous use of Absolute Zero. Admittedly, he needed a certain combo of cards to be out before he could be a powerhouse, but once that was set up he was one of our main damage-dealers.
To me, Absolute Zero seems good-but-brittle. That is, with some work and setup you can get very good results out of him, but the combo can crumble if some of the pieces get removed. So, a bit of a high-risk, high-reward setup.
(But, again, this is based on three games total, only of them with Absolute Zero in the mix.)
You probably did not come up against any equipment hate. Because once equipment-destroying cards are in the mix, Absolute Zero gets crushed, since he basically IS his equipment. Compare this to Tachyon or the Scholar, who can recover easily from Ongoing/Equipment destruction (despite making heavy use of Ongoings with the Scholar).
Absolute Zero needs a combination of cards in play (minimum 2, and usually 3 or more) to do the same kind of damage that several other characters can do with just one card (and keep doing, no less. Look at Ra or Tempest or Haka for some examples). The stronger villains and tougher environments simply don't let you have that kind of advantage unless you have a LOT of scouting going on to filter out the equipment-hate. Combined with limited card retrieval from his deck (unlike, say, the Naturalist who can grab his Ongoings with his base ability), Absolute Zero is tough to get going, and with the same amount of card draws, other heroes have more utility/damage/healing/etc.
Statistically, on over a thousand plays on the Sentinels Statistics Project, he is one of the worst heroes. From personal experience, the few times I've lost is when we've had either version of Absolute Zero in the mix. I add him when I want a stronger challenge to the game against a weaker boss. His one unique and awesome card is the one that switches End of Villain Turn effects into Start of Villain Turn effects, which gives you a pretty cool gift of slowing down the villain actions for a whole turn on their card draws.
Once you get his combo going, he's "neat", but there are plenty of card-combo-based heroes like Knyfe and Ra that outclass him. Bunker is bad, too, (SO many "dead" draws with all those extra mode cards) but at least he has the Omnicannon and Ammo Drop.
Does anyone know a game with a similar basic gameplay mechanic to Kingsburg but with different building mechanics or something like that? I love Kingsburg -- everything except for prioritizing which buildings to go for is super simple and I think it'd be a great game to help me expand my current groups interest in board games that aren't Arkham Horror but I think that a lot of the building trees are just traps which sucks for new people until they get a few games under their belt. The way the main roll dice and spend them in different ways to get material is super fun IMO, and I like the monster invasion mechanic.
Kingsport Festival?
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TehSlothHit Or MissI Guess They Never Miss, HuhRegistered Userregular
Will definitely check out kingsport festival, the theme will be right up my groups alley too
Does anyone know a game with a similar basic gameplay mechanic to Kingsburg but with different building mechanics or something like that? I love Kingsburg -- everything except for prioritizing which buildings to go for is super simple and I think it'd be a great game to help me expand my current groups interest in board games that aren't Arkham Horror but I think that a lot of the building trees are just traps which sucks for new people until they get a few games under their belt. The way the main roll dice and spend them in different ways to get material is super fun IMO, and I like the monster invasion mechanic.
Do you have To Forge a Realm? Like many of FFG's properties, this game gets a lot better with the expansion.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice that Xia looks very much like Merchants & Marauders in space. There's a few things Xia appears to do that I like better, but there's also some that seem worse than M&M, like the heavier reliance on swingy dice.
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
I've only played like three games of Sentinels, so obviously I am super ill-equipped to judge, but in our first game, my friend made tremendous use of Absolute Zero. Admittedly, he needed a certain combo of cards to be out before he could be a powerhouse, but once that was set up he was one of our main damage-dealers.
To me, Absolute Zero seems good-but-brittle. That is, with some work and setup you can get very good results out of him, but the combo can crumble if some of the pieces get removed. So, a bit of a high-risk, high-reward setup.
(But, again, this is based on three games total, only of them with Absolute Zero in the mix.)
You probably did not come up against any equipment hate. Because once equipment-destroying cards are in the mix, Absolute Zero gets crushed, since he basically IS his equipment. Compare this to Tachyon or the Scholar, who can recover easily from Ongoing/Equipment destruction (despite making heavy use of Ongoings with the Scholar).
Absolute Zero needs a combination of cards in play (minimum 2, and usually 3 or more) to do the same kind of damage that several other characters can do with just one card (and keep doing, no less. Look at Ra or Tempest or Haka for some examples). The stronger villains and tougher environments simply don't let you have that kind of advantage unless you have a LOT of scouting going on to filter out the equipment-hate. Combined with limited card retrieval from his deck (unlike, say, the Naturalist who can grab his Ongoings with his base ability), Absolute Zero is tough to get going, and with the same amount of card draws, other heroes have more utility/damage/healing/etc.
Statistically, on over a thousand plays on the Sentinels Statistics Project, he is one of the worst heroes. From personal experience, the few times I've lost is when we've had either version of Absolute Zero in the mix. I add him when I want a stronger challenge to the game against a weaker boss. His one unique and awesome card is the one that switches End of Villain Turn effects into Start of Villain Turn effects, which gives you a pretty cool gift of slowing down the villain actions for a whole turn on their card draws.
Once you get his combo going, he's "neat", but there are plenty of card-combo-based heroes like Knyfe and Ra that outclass him. Bunker is bad, too, (SO many "dead" draws with all those extra mode cards) but at least he has the Omnicannon and Ammo Drop.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "brittle". I played Bunker in one game, and it was... not entirely satisfying. Especially since we had both a boss and an environment that ate equipment. I'd only have one or two things out at a time, at most, and only for a couple of turns at a time. Very frustrating, because I really like the idea of that character. It's just not very well implemented. If their idea is to have a character who has a slow power-up time after which he starts dispensing angry justice, then maybe they need to make his equipment a little more sticky.
Playing Game of Thrones tonight with a group of 5-6. We're all heavy gamers, but most of us haven't played it before (myself included). One of our semi-regulars has played it and wanted to bring it to the table.
I watched the FFG videos and some of the other ones on YT...any other gotchas I should know about? Tips for new players?
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice that Xia looks very much like Merchants & Marauders in space. There's a few things Xia appears to do that I like better, but there's also some that seem worse than M&M, like the heavier reliance on swingy dice.
That is suuuuuuper unfortunate to hear.
I'd been sort'vekind've tracking Xia due to it's visual appeal, but my copy of Merchants & Marauders went to goodwill after 2 plays with the group. :-/
Playing Game of Thrones tonight with a group of 5-6. We're all heavy gamers, but most of us haven't played it before (myself included). One of our semi-regulars has played it and wanted to bring it to the table.
I watched the FFG videos and some of the other ones on YT...any other gotchas I should know about? Tips for new players?
Greyjoy lives and dies by his first few turns. Try to capitalize on Lannister mistakes. Don't give up the sea. Power is super important, don't neglect it.
You're going to piss people off. Betrayal is the heart of GoT. Just don't give in to Munchkin syndrome: don't gang up on #1 and let #2 slip in for the win, you should have units and strategy to contain your neighbors while expanding yourself. Stark in particular has a lot of great room to expand if you grab a few keeps early and get a lucky muster.
Also, don't let the "worst" player be Stark. If Stark tries to play it safe, Lannister can really walk away with things. They need that threat in the North to keep them in check.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Playing Game of Thrones tonight with a group of 5-6. We're all heavy gamers, but most of us haven't played it before (myself included). One of our semi-regulars has played it and wanted to bring it to the table.
I watched the FFG videos and some of the other ones on YT...any other gotchas I should know about? Tips for new players?
Greyjoy lives and dies by his first few turns. Try to capitalize on Lannister mistakes. Don't give up the sea. Power is super important, don't neglect it.
You're going to piss people off. Betrayal is the heart of GoT. Just don't give in to Munchkin syndrome: don't gang up on #1 and let #2 slip in for the win, you should have units and strategy to contain your neighbors while expanding yourself. Stark in particular has a lot of great room to expand if you grab a few keeps early and get a lucky muster.
In terms of teaching, make sure everyone understands this is a wargame at heart. I've seen people lose time and again because they were busy politicking while others were quietly conquering the South.
Yeah, despite what the books or show might have people think, the game of thrones boardgame is almost purely a wargame that focuses on order manipulation and resource management, with politics as a distant afterthought, which is why it really left my group high and dry, we really wanted the game to be something it wasn't.
Ok, so if I have to distill this down to a few bullet points for my crew to remember:
This is a wargame first and foremost
The nature of the map and the house cards means that there's an asymmetry among which strategies will work for which houses
Focus on winning, rather than focusing on making sure someone else doesn't win.
Someone mentioned the importance of the sea...in the FFG video it looked like it was mostly used for ferrying units around? Is there a naval combat/dominance thing I should know about?
In fact fuck it, a quick sentence describing each of the house's playstyle would really answer all of these for me.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
I've only played like three games of Sentinels, so obviously I am super ill-equipped to judge, but in our first game, my friend made tremendous use of Absolute Zero. Admittedly, he needed a certain combo of cards to be out before he could be a powerhouse, but once that was set up he was one of our main damage-dealers.
To me, Absolute Zero seems good-but-brittle. That is, with some work and setup you can get very good results out of him, but the combo can crumble if some of the pieces get removed. So, a bit of a high-risk, high-reward setup.
(But, again, this is based on three games total, only of them with Absolute Zero in the mix.)
You probably did not come up against any equipment hate. Because once equipment-destroying cards are in the mix, Absolute Zero gets crushed, since he basically IS his equipment. Compare this to Tachyon or the Scholar, who can recover easily from Ongoing/Equipment destruction (despite making heavy use of Ongoings with the Scholar).
Absolute Zero needs a combination of cards in play (minimum 2, and usually 3 or more) to do the same kind of damage that several other characters can do with just one card (and keep doing, no less. Look at Ra or Tempest or Haka for some examples). The stronger villains and tougher environments simply don't let you have that kind of advantage unless you have a LOT of scouting going on to filter out the equipment-hate. Combined with limited card retrieval from his deck (unlike, say, the Naturalist who can grab his Ongoings with his base ability), Absolute Zero is tough to get going, and with the same amount of card draws, other heroes have more utility/damage/healing/etc.
Statistically, on over a thousand plays on the Sentinels Statistics Project, he is one of the worst heroes. From personal experience, the few times I've lost is when we've had either version of Absolute Zero in the mix. I add him when I want a stronger challenge to the game against a weaker boss. His one unique and awesome card is the one that switches End of Villain Turn effects into Start of Villain Turn effects, which gives you a pretty cool gift of slowing down the villain actions for a whole turn on their card draws.
Once you get his combo going, he's "neat", but there are plenty of card-combo-based heroes like Knyfe and Ra that outclass him. Bunker is bad, too, (SO many "dead" draws with all those extra mode cards) but at least he has the Omnicannon and Ammo Drop.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "brittle". I played Bunker in one game, and it was... not entirely satisfying. Especially since we had both a boss and an environment that ate equipment. I'd only have one or two things out at a time, at most, and only for a couple of turns at a time. Very frustrating, because I really like the idea of that character. It's just not very well implemented. If their idea is to have a character who has a slow power-up time after which he starts dispensing angry justice, then maybe they need to make his equipment a little more sticky.
I will admit, tho, that one thing that AZ can do is Tank. Like everything else he needs to keep a couple of equipment cards on the table, but his ability to turn Cold damage into healing makes him one of the few heroes with a self-heal as his base power. If Haka, Legacy, and The Naturalist are not available, AZ's self-healing turns him into a very useful damage absorber against the more marathon-damage villains.
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
Yeah he is the worst. His appeal is psychological in that he presents a challenge and when someone happens upon a combo that wrangles some use out of him, it makes you FEEL awesome but really another hero could have accomplished three times as much with half the effort.
About the best you can realistically expect from him is getting the +1 cold damage card out and then an impale card on the villain. Then get the cold damage healing card and tank while impale picks away. He CAN do other stuff...theoretically, but it's probably not going to happen. Good luck getting any use out of Sub Zero in the Mars Base environment, doubly so if it's against Omnitron or Citizen Dawn.
Any other hero does better with less cards. A Wraith/Legacy/Tempest who can keep 4 equipment/ongoing cards out is going to win you the game. Even Bunker is better than Absolute Zero with a couple cards out.
(Although with Bunker, you really need to house rule it so that you can change modes every turn without it counting as your "play" action. And even after dozens of games, I still can't figure out when you would ever want to use his Upgrade mode. It's so insanely situational and you're taking a big chance so that, long term, you'll be able to play ONE extra card over the course of two or three turns at the cost of some hefty drawbacks.)
Any thoughts on issues with a seven man game of base bsg.
Plan is to have three cylons and not use boomer/baltar as required to avoid a loyalty card shortage
Issue is that it will take 3 years to play.
Every player still draws crisis cards, so it should not change the play length much.
Every player draws crisis cards but each player gets a turn, and any skill check or decision takes that much longer. I saw a 5-hour game of BSG the other day and it looked awful.
I figure I could take a bear.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Any thoughts on issues with a seven man game of base bsg.
Plan is to have three cylons and not use boomer/baltar as required to avoid a loyalty card shortage
Issue is that it will take 3 years to play.
Every player still draws crisis cards, so it should not change the play length much.
Every player draws crisis cards but each player gets a turn, and any skill check or decision takes that much longer. I saw a 5-hour game of BSG the other day and it looked awful.
Right but that doesn't change anything, the game progresses per player turn, not per circuit round the board due to the crisis cards.
And wow. I've never come close to that. It's usually wrapped up inside 3hours. Was that just lots of arguing about cylons or people not understanding rules?
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Three games hit the table last night. Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy was sadly underwhelming. Instead of imaginative family-building, one player's optimized card play was so far ahead of the rest of us that the game was pretty much set by the half-way point.
We also played Lost Legacy: Binbo Tantei to Inbo no Shiro. Still fun and neat.
And then Sail to India. Surprising amount of game in very few components. An impressive design feat. Not sure I would want to play this more than half a dozen times, though. Too much VP counting and number-crunching for my tastes. Plays quickly, though.
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
Yeah he is the worst. His appeal is psychological in that he presents a challenge and when someone happens upon a combo that wrangles some use out of him, it makes you FEEL awesome but really another hero could have accomplished three times as much with half the effort.
About the best you can realistically expect from him is getting the +1 cold damage card out and then an impale card on the villain. Then get the cold damage healing card and tank while impale picks away. He CAN do other stuff...theoretically, but it's probably not going to happen. Good luck getting any use out of Sub Zero in the Mars Base environment, doubly so if it's against Omnitron or Citizen Dawn.
Any other hero does better with less cards. A Wraith/Legacy/Tempest who can keep 4 equipment/ongoing cards out is going to win you the game. Even Bunker is better than Absolute Zero with a couple cards out.
(Although with Bunker, you really need to house rule it so that you can change modes every turn without it counting as your "play" action. And even after dozens of games, I still can't figure out when you would ever want to use his Upgrade mode. It's so insanely situational and you're taking a big chance so that, long term, you'll be able to play ONE extra card over the course of two or three turns at the cost of some hefty drawbacks.)
Bunker's got the advantage, in the pc environment, of having the GI Bunker alternate version, which is really helpful vs Dawn and the General, as well. Gatling Gun is fairly bad without ammo drop, but it's still a decent mitigator for some of his dead-card issues.
I'm pretty sure the PC / App doesn't have any give-other-people-stuff options that help AZ that much, too. I'm informed by browsing around the internet that some of the expansion heroes can accelerate him better or keep him upright while Ra bounces damage off him.
Basically, though, they ought to redo his effect so that one of the modules is always on inherently and more of his cards do self-damage to combo off.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
It is difficult to overstate the importance of ships in AGOT. Never neglect your navy.
1. Using them as a bridge is the only way to move several regions in one order with your land troops.
2. Ships can support land battles and raid land orders, but the opposite is not true. And support and raid orders are massively important.
The sea doesn't have bonuses like land areas have, but you can still give orders to every sea tile you control. Boats also give your land units greater mobility, and can support coastal battles. It's absolutely vital for Greyjoy, but Stark, Martell, and Tyrell can't ignore it entirely. For Baratheon and Lannister, it could go either way. They're adjacent to a lot of good starting territories, but if their neighbors are boat aggressive they're going to need to reevaluate.
After many games of the Steam/PC version of SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, it has come to my attention that Absolute Zero is really Absolute Worthless.
Yeah he is the worst. His appeal is psychological in that he presents a challenge and when someone happens upon a combo that wrangles some use out of him, it makes you FEEL awesome but really another hero could have accomplished three times as much with half the effort.
About the best you can realistically expect from him is getting the +1 cold damage card out and then an impale card on the villain. Then get the cold damage healing card and tank while impale picks away. He CAN do other stuff...theoretically, but it's probably not going to happen. Good luck getting any use out of Sub Zero in the Mars Base environment, doubly so if it's against Omnitron or Citizen Dawn.
Any other hero does better with less cards. A Wraith/Legacy/Tempest who can keep 4 equipment/ongoing cards out is going to win you the game. Even Bunker is better than Absolute Zero with a couple cards out.
(Although with Bunker, you really need to house rule it so that you can change modes every turn without it counting as your "play" action. And even after dozens of games, I still can't figure out when you would ever want to use his Upgrade mode. It's so insanely situational and you're taking a big chance so that, long term, you'll be able to play ONE extra card over the course of two or three turns at the cost of some hefty drawbacks.)
Bunker's got the advantage, in the pc environment, of having the GI Bunker alternate version, which is really helpful vs Dawn and the General, as well. Gatling Gun is fairly bad without ammo drop, but it's still a decent mitigator for some of his dead-card issues.
I'm pretty sure the PC / App doesn't have any give-other-people-stuff options that help AZ that much, too. I'm informed by browsing around the internet that some of the expansion heroes can accelerate him better or keep him upright while Ra bounces damage off him.
Basically, though, they ought to redo his effect so that one of the modules is always on inherently and more of his cards do self-damage to combo off.
GI Bunker exists in IRL, too, not just PC. I'm not sure that he makes Bunker much better, but at least mode cards aren't dead in your hand. Most people who don't have the alternate promos usually proxy them (just print them out and sleeve them). You can find proxies at boardgamegeek or Spiff's SotM site.
The alternate version of Absolute Zero changes his power so that it's direct cold damage instead of self damage, which only marginally makes him better. At least, he's not completely useless when equipment hate burns his stuff.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Yeah, what I was getting at was that a) GI Bunker's there and the alt-AZ isn't and b) the environment's smaller and you can't proxy anything.
With the PC version having a more-restricted card pool the evaluation process changes a little, basically. That's not to say it magically makes Zero good, but alt-Zero would be pretty decent in the app / PC environment, much as Bunker suffers less by comparison to the other options in there and because alt-Tachyon is his bff for deploying equipment and thinning.
Plus, as the app can be run very smoothly single-player, you can if you really want execute something like Legacy, Fanatic, Visionary, Ra, and AZ to try to turn that last into a monster and you're not making the other four people playing make weird decisions to enable you.
With the PC version having a more-restricted card pool the evaluation process changes a little, basically. That's not to say it magically makes Zero good, but alt-Zero would be pretty decent in the app / PC environment, much as Bunker suffers less by comparison to the other options in there and because alt-Tachyon is his bff for deploying equipment and thinning.
Team Leader Tachyon is everyone's BFF and probably the best character in the game. Bonus card draw, which fuels her powers and everyone else's card draw, is overwhelmingly effective. TLT is the top of the charts at the Sentinel Statistics Project, and it's really not hard to see why.* (See Edit)
Not having alt-AZ is almost criminal. I say almost because you shouldn't ever be using AZ anyway.
* EDIT: Wait, is the alternate Tachyon in the PC game Team Leader Tachyon or Super Scientist Tachyon? I assumed that the deploying equipment and thinning thing was a reference to the absurd amount of cards you get with Team Leader Tachyon, but then I realized that you probably were referring to Super Scientist Tachyon's ability to grab the bottom two cards of the deck and play or discard them depending on traits.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Yeah, it's super-scientist. They both benefit, but Bunker's retrieval is better so he benefits more.
How do you unlock stuff in the iPad version of Sentinels? I'm sure I've played it a few times since unlocks became a thing but nothing seems to be there.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
How do you unlock stuff in the iPad version of Sentinels? I'm sure I've played it a few times since unlocks became a thing but nothing seems to be there.
The alt-characters aren't too complex, but Cosmic Omnitron was a bit of a pain.
I believe Young Legacy came by letting regular Legacy die to Baron Blade at Wagner Mars Base, GI Bunker comes off playing all 3 Modes in one game, Rook City Wraith from using the eyepiece twice in one turn, and Tachyon's unlock was discard-based, though I forget the exact number.
Has anyone played Merchants & Marauders? Is it worth the time investment required for a game?
Check out SU&SDs review of Xia: Legends of a Drift System. They end it by basically saying "Yeah, M&M is better at this, this, and this." So it'll at least give you an idea if you'll like it?
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Has anyone played Merchants & Marauders? Is it worth the time investment required for a game?
Check out SU&SDs review of Xia: Legends of a Drift System. They end it by basically saying "Yeah, M&M is better at this, this, and this." So it'll at least give you an idea if you'll like it?
They actually have a review for Merchants & Marauders itself as well.
I know they liked it and for reasons I found persuasive, but some other reviews complain it's too long, there's not enough interaction, there are broken mechanics, and that it's hard to teach/overcomplicated. So I solicit additional opinions.
I know they liked it and for reasons I found persuasive, but some other reviews complain it's too long, there's not enough interaction, there are broken mechanics, and that it's hard to teach/overcomplicated. So I solicit additional opinions.
Well this comes down to preferences in board games. I think both sides are probably right. You have to keep in mind who is reviewing it and what their tastes are. If you look at the actual review, it's solely Quinns' opinion. He, in other reviews and in general, favors an experience. When he brings up M&M, it's about moments in the game, memorable bits that evoke the theme. He won't like a crap game just for theme and he appreciates greatly designed mechanics, but he does come from an angle of romanticism. In that way, it probably does have some broken mechanics, he does warn it is hard to teach to people outside the hobby, and it probably is too long. Based on past reviews, I don't think those would be a big enough issue for him to not recommend something, if the rest of the experience is good enough. Whether or not that will be the case for you is, well, up to you.
I would guess solicited opinions will probably just show people's preferences in games, rather than an objective judgement of it, but you'll probably get a few anyways!
Man, I found out yesterday that Summoner Wars: Alliances is a thing that will soon happen. This is wonderful and terrible, because I love Summoner Wars, but literally none of my friends like it - they feel like randomness plays too significant a role, that whiffing on a killing blow could be a game-changer. So this just might be a game I buy for my dragon hoard, just to look at and never play.
(To be fair, it's not like I'm especially good at the game, I'm just a huge sucker for theme, so all of Summoner Wars' very flavorful factions are delicious to me.)
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@TehSloth Take a look at Kingsport Festival? I think it's supposed to be similar to Kingsburg, but with a Mythos theme, where the players are all cultists. Not sure if the mechanic is you dislike is still present or not.
Absolute Zero needs a combination of cards in play (minimum 2, and usually 3 or more) to do the same kind of damage that several other characters can do with just one card (and keep doing, no less. Look at Ra or Tempest or Haka for some examples). The stronger villains and tougher environments simply don't let you have that kind of advantage unless you have a LOT of scouting going on to filter out the equipment-hate. Combined with limited card retrieval from his deck (unlike, say, the Naturalist who can grab his Ongoings with his base ability), Absolute Zero is tough to get going, and with the same amount of card draws, other heroes have more utility/damage/healing/etc.
Statistically, on over a thousand plays on the Sentinels Statistics Project, he is one of the worst heroes. From personal experience, the few times I've lost is when we've had either version of Absolute Zero in the mix. I add him when I want a stronger challenge to the game against a weaker boss. His one unique and awesome card is the one that switches End of Villain Turn effects into Start of Villain Turn effects, which gives you a pretty cool gift of slowing down the villain actions for a whole turn on their card draws.
Once you get his combo going, he's "neat", but there are plenty of card-combo-based heroes like Knyfe and Ra that outclass him. Bunker is bad, too, (SO many "dead" draws with all those extra mode cards) but at least he has the Omnicannon and Ammo Drop.
Kingsport Festival?
twitch.tv/tehsloth
Do you have To Forge a Realm? Like many of FFG's properties, this game gets a lot better with the expansion.
Article doesn't mention how the rules for that'd work, I'm guessing skirmish?
EDIT: Unrelated, SU&SD reviews Xia: Legends of a Drift System.
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I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice that Xia looks very much like Merchants & Marauders in space. There's a few things Xia appears to do that I like better, but there's also some that seem worse than M&M, like the heavier reliance on swingy dice.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "brittle". I played Bunker in one game, and it was... not entirely satisfying. Especially since we had both a boss and an environment that ate equipment. I'd only have one or two things out at a time, at most, and only for a couple of turns at a time. Very frustrating, because I really like the idea of that character. It's just not very well implemented. If their idea is to have a character who has a slow power-up time after which he starts dispensing angry justice, then maybe they need to make his equipment a little more sticky.
I watched the FFG videos and some of the other ones on YT...any other gotchas I should know about? Tips for new players?
That is suuuuuuper unfortunate to hear.
I'd been sort'vekind've tracking Xia due to it's visual appeal, but my copy of Merchants & Marauders went to goodwill after 2 plays with the group. :-/
You're going to piss people off. Betrayal is the heart of GoT. Just don't give in to Munchkin syndrome: don't gang up on #1 and let #2 slip in for the win, you should have units and strategy to contain your neighbors while expanding yourself. Stark in particular has a lot of great room to expand if you grab a few keeps early and get a lucky muster.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
In terms of teaching, make sure everyone understands this is a wargame at heart. I've seen people lose time and again because they were busy politicking while others were quietly conquering the South.
Someone mentioned the importance of the sea...in the FFG video it looked like it was mostly used for ferrying units around? Is there a naval combat/dominance thing I should know about?
In fact fuck it, a quick sentence describing each of the house's playstyle would really answer all of these for me.
I will admit, tho, that one thing that AZ can do is Tank. Like everything else he needs to keep a couple of equipment cards on the table, but his ability to turn Cold damage into healing makes him one of the few heroes with a self-heal as his base power. If Haka, Legacy, and The Naturalist are not available, AZ's self-healing turns him into a very useful damage absorber against the more marathon-damage villains.
Every player still draws crisis cards, so it should not change the play length much.
Yeah he is the worst. His appeal is psychological in that he presents a challenge and when someone happens upon a combo that wrangles some use out of him, it makes you FEEL awesome but really another hero could have accomplished three times as much with half the effort.
About the best you can realistically expect from him is getting the +1 cold damage card out and then an impale card on the villain. Then get the cold damage healing card and tank while impale picks away. He CAN do other stuff...theoretically, but it's probably not going to happen. Good luck getting any use out of Sub Zero in the Mars Base environment, doubly so if it's against Omnitron or Citizen Dawn.
Any other hero does better with less cards. A Wraith/Legacy/Tempest who can keep 4 equipment/ongoing cards out is going to win you the game. Even Bunker is better than Absolute Zero with a couple cards out.
(Although with Bunker, you really need to house rule it so that you can change modes every turn without it counting as your "play" action. And even after dozens of games, I still can't figure out when you would ever want to use his Upgrade mode. It's so insanely situational and you're taking a big chance so that, long term, you'll be able to play ONE extra card over the course of two or three turns at the cost of some hefty drawbacks.)
Every player draws crisis cards but each player gets a turn, and any skill check or decision takes that much longer. I saw a 5-hour game of BSG the other day and it looked awful.
Right but that doesn't change anything, the game progresses per player turn, not per circuit round the board due to the crisis cards.
And wow. I've never come close to that. It's usually wrapped up inside 3hours. Was that just lots of arguing about cylons or people not understanding rules?
We also played Lost Legacy: Binbo Tantei to Inbo no Shiro. Still fun and neat.
And then Sail to India. Surprising amount of game in very few components. An impressive design feat. Not sure I would want to play this more than half a dozen times, though. Too much VP counting and number-crunching for my tastes. Plays quickly, though.
Bunker's got the advantage, in the pc environment, of having the GI Bunker alternate version, which is really helpful vs Dawn and the General, as well. Gatling Gun is fairly bad without ammo drop, but it's still a decent mitigator for some of his dead-card issues.
I'm pretty sure the PC / App doesn't have any give-other-people-stuff options that help AZ that much, too. I'm informed by browsing around the internet that some of the expansion heroes can accelerate him better or keep him upright while Ra bounces damage off him.
Basically, though, they ought to redo his effect so that one of the modules is always on inherently and more of his cards do self-damage to combo off.
1. Using them as a bridge is the only way to move several regions in one order with your land troops.
2. Ships can support land battles and raid land orders, but the opposite is not true. And support and raid orders are massively important.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
The alternate version of Absolute Zero changes his power so that it's direct cold damage instead of self damage, which only marginally makes him better. At least, he's not completely useless when equipment hate burns his stuff.
With the PC version having a more-restricted card pool the evaluation process changes a little, basically. That's not to say it magically makes Zero good, but alt-Zero would be pretty decent in the app / PC environment, much as Bunker suffers less by comparison to the other options in there and because alt-Tachyon is his bff for deploying equipment and thinning.
Plus, as the app can be run very smoothly single-player, you can if you really want execute something like Legacy, Fanatic, Visionary, Ra, and AZ to try to turn that last into a monster and you're not making the other four people playing make weird decisions to enable you.
Not having alt-AZ is almost criminal. I say almost because you shouldn't ever be using AZ anyway.
* EDIT: Wait, is the alternate Tachyon in the PC game Team Leader Tachyon or Super Scientist Tachyon? I assumed that the deploying equipment and thinning thing was a reference to the absurd amount of cards you get with Team Leader Tachyon, but then I realized that you probably were referring to Super Scientist Tachyon's ability to grab the bottom two cards of the deck and play or discard them depending on traits.
The alt-characters aren't too complex, but Cosmic Omnitron was a bit of a pain.
I believe Young Legacy came by letting regular Legacy die to Baron Blade at Wagner Mars Base, GI Bunker comes off playing all 3 Modes in one game, Rook City Wraith from using the eyepiece twice in one turn, and Tachyon's unlock was discard-based, though I forget the exact number.
Not that I could find; I looked them up in a guide on Steam. some google-fu I'd deploy for you if not on my phone should get the job done.
Check out SU&SDs review of Xia: Legends of a Drift System. They end it by basically saying "Yeah, M&M is better at this, this, and this." So it'll at least give you an idea if you'll like it?
They actually have a review for Merchants & Marauders itself as well.
Well this comes down to preferences in board games. I think both sides are probably right. You have to keep in mind who is reviewing it and what their tastes are. If you look at the actual review, it's solely Quinns' opinion. He, in other reviews and in general, favors an experience. When he brings up M&M, it's about moments in the game, memorable bits that evoke the theme. He won't like a crap game just for theme and he appreciates greatly designed mechanics, but he does come from an angle of romanticism. In that way, it probably does have some broken mechanics, he does warn it is hard to teach to people outside the hobby, and it probably is too long. Based on past reviews, I don't think those would be a big enough issue for him to not recommend something, if the rest of the experience is good enough. Whether or not that will be the case for you is, well, up to you.
I would guess solicited opinions will probably just show people's preferences in games, rather than an objective judgement of it, but you'll probably get a few anyways!
(To be fair, it's not like I'm especially good at the game, I'm just a huge sucker for theme, so all of Summoner Wars' very flavorful factions are delicious to me.)