Explain the game's cave mechanics as played without a cave player first, then hand the player all the components and say "now every cave action is your choice."
GNU Terry Pratchett
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
My friend just got Vast, and wants to play it. As the resident "teacher dude" of the group, I may be tapped into teaching this as well, since it's like five different games to learn at once. I've watched a couple videos of a playthrough, and I think I understand the game plan needed for the Knight, the Goblins, and the Dragon. The Cave and Thief are still a bit opaque to me.
Any tips? On teaching this, plus how to grok the latter two roles?
(Note: I also have just gotten Keyflower, plus some of the other guys wants to play Concordia, so the next session kinda sounds crowded in terms of brain energy required...)
The cave basically plays as the great equaliser. To win, they want the game to go long so they can place all the cave cards and then begin collapsing the cave (winning once they collapse 5(?) crystal tiles). Thus if any one player starts getting too far ahead, they need to try and slow their progress. They can do this in a whole bunch of ways, placing treasure near losing players. Playing ambush tiles where the knight is going if the goblins are behind, or treasure if the knight is behind. They even have an expensive power that directly penalises a player (-grit for knight, etc).
I can't say I've played the thief myself, but they do play a very different role from the other character players. Each of the dragon, knight and goblin interact with each other in a circular fashion, whereas the thief is all out on his own with everyone wanting to attack him. All the thief has to do is get treasure: either dragon gems, normal treasure or (I think) pick-pocketing the knight, and take it back to the entrance. Unfortunately for him, all other players receive a large bonus if they take him down, so he has to try and sneak about and not get caught; rather like a thief!
The first time we played with the thief, the cave didn't really know their objective so let them get a lot of treasure very quickly and thus power up far quicker than the other players. Ended up with a somewhat one-sided game, so make sure everyone is aware of everyone's goals in the game.
It might take a game or two to figure things out, but it's really great. A definite masterclass in asymmetric balance!
My friend just got Vast, and wants to play it. As the resident "teacher dude" of the group, I may be tapped into teaching this as well, since it's like five different games to learn at once. I've watched a couple videos of a playthrough, and I think I understand the game plan needed for the Knight, the Goblins, and the Dragon. The Cave and Thief are still a bit opaque to me.
Any tips? On teaching this, plus how to grok the latter two roles?
(Note: I also have just gotten Keyflower, plus some of the other guys wants to play Concordia, so the next session kinda sounds crowded in terms of brain energy required...)
My first tip would be to pretend the Thief doesn't exist unless you actually have 5 players. Bursar's tip above is excellent as well.
AC:NH Chris from Glosta SW-5173-3598-2899 DA-4749-1014-4697 @vyolynce@mastodon.social
I got my ass kicked as Unity today in Sidereal Confluence. How am I supposed to sell these wild cubes at a profit? Theyre only "premium" in Unity's broad custermer base, not in the customer's utility in them.
Early in the trade phase trade them for whatever people need. Cut in on people's negotiations and offer better deals for wild cubes so they can get on with something else. Easy deals that let people focus on other stuff are especially valuable in large player count games. Late in the trade phase look for deals with people who are looking for scarce resources and make them pay extra for your wild cubes. Alternately try to trade bulk cubes not going to use late in the trade phase for bulk wild cubes, to offer future flexibility.
All that's theory craft, I haven't actually played as them yet.
My friend just got Vast, and wants to play it. As the resident "teacher dude" of the group, I may be tapped into teaching this as well, since it's like five different games to learn at once. I've watched a couple videos of a playthrough, and I think I understand the game plan needed for the Knight, the Goblins, and the Dragon. The Cave and Thief are still a bit opaque to me.
Any tips? On teaching this, plus how to grok the latter two roles?
(Note: I also have just gotten Keyflower, plus some of the other guys wants to play Concordia, so the next session kinda sounds crowded in terms of brain energy required...)
My first tip would be to pretend the Thief doesn't exist unless you actually have 5 players. Bursar's tip above is excellent as well.
+1ing the thief notion here featured. The thief was actually a kickstarter bonus, with the original base pitch only having the other four characters. Thus the game is really balanced around the core four with any removal of one of those changing the rules and the way the game plays significantly and IMO making for a less fun game.
Early in the trade phase trade them for whatever people need. Cut in on people's negotiations and offer better deals for wild cubes so they can get on with something else. Easy deals that let people focus on other stuff are especially valuable in large player count games. Late in the trade phase look for deals with people who are looking for scarce resources and make them pay extra for your wild cubes. Alternately try to trade bulk cubes not going to use late in the trade phase for bulk wild cubes, to offer future flexibility.
All that's theory craft, I haven't actually played as them yet.
Sweet!
Also, one guy higly intrigued by the game dove right into the Im'Dril, went into debt and go his score in the fifties. His enthusiasm was on par with my first game with the devs as I was making Century comparisons.
Early in the trade phase trade them for whatever people need. Cut in on people's negotiations and offer better deals for wild cubes so they can get on with something else. Easy deals that let people focus on other stuff are especially valuable in large player count games. Late in the trade phase look for deals with people who are looking for scarce resources and make them pay extra for your wild cubes. Alternately try to trade bulk cubes not going to use late in the trade phase for bulk wild cubes, to offer future flexibility.
All that's theory craft, I haven't actually played as them yet.
Sweet!
Also, one guy higly intrigued by the game dove right into the Im'Dril, went into debt and go his score in the fifties. His enthusiasm was on par with my first game with the devs as I was making Century comparisons.
Nice. Our winning scores tied at 49.5 (they were playing the K... Colony guys and the eni et space whale bankers), I came in after them with mid 40s (faderan), everyone else went down from there. I keep looking to get it back to the table but it hasn't happened thus far. I loved it, but I'm not sure anyone else was as enthused. Definitely not a game for all tastes.
My friend just got Vast, and wants to play it. As the resident "teacher dude" of the group, I may be tapped into teaching this as well, since it's like five different games to learn at once. I've watched a couple videos of a playthrough, and I think I understand the game plan needed for the Knight, the Goblins, and the Dragon. The Cave and Thief are still a bit opaque to me.
Any tips? On teaching this, plus how to grok the latter two roles?
(Note: I also have just gotten Keyflower, plus some of the other guys wants to play Concordia, so the next session kinda sounds crowded in terms of brain energy required...)
The cave basically plays as the great equaliser. To win, they want the game to go long so they can place all the cave cards and then begin collapsing the cave (winning once they collapse 5(?) crystal tiles). Thus if any one player starts getting too far ahead, they need to try and slow their progress. They can do this in a whole bunch of ways, placing treasure near losing players. Playing ambush tiles where the knight is going if the goblins are behind, or treasure if the knight is behind. They even have an expensive power that directly penalises a player (-grit for knight, etc).
I can't say I've played the thief myself, but they do play a very different role from the other character players. Each of the dragon, knight and goblin interact with each other in a circular fashion, whereas the thief is all out on his own with everyone wanting to attack him. All the thief has to do is get treasure: either dragon gems, normal treasure or (I think) pick-pocketing the knight, and take it back to the entrance. Unfortunately for him, all other players receive a large bonus if they take him down, so he has to try and sneak about and not get caught; rather like a thief!
The first time we played with the thief, the cave didn't really know their objective so let them get a lot of treasure very quickly and thus power up far quicker than the other players. Ended up with a somewhat one-sided game, so make sure everyone is aware of everyone's goals in the game.
It might take a game or two to figure things out, but it's really great. A definite masterclass in asymmetric balance!
The thing to remember about playing the thief, is that everyone looks at you like the looney tunes always looked at each other on a desert island - like a big tasty morsel, full of experience points and treasure. You need to avoid the other players as much as you can, because anyone who manages to take you out gains a big boost. The cave might also try to keep the balance by keeping you away from the other players (or pushing you together if someone else is in the lead, possibly)
0
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
edited January 2018
Action Report!
Keyflower was a great success! The mechanics were understood by my "students" easily enough (including some "damn that's a clever mechanic" moments), but I handily won because the other person gunning for the win undervalued the green keyples, which only a couple players (me included) have access to. That, and no one contested me going first into Winter, which allowed me to dominate bidding with my army of yellow keyples. A+ experience for all, will play again.
Since the Vast owner didn't know how to play the Thief (since jongetsgames's video didn't have it), it fell upon me to be the Thief. We got Tile revealing wrong (thinking that the orientation to keep a route to the entrance open was only for the Knight), but I managed to get to the lead with four treasures (one getting yoinked from the Knight who was hanging out real close to the entrance as I respawned).... so as free-for-all convention goes, that meant everyone just started aiming for me. By the end, the Dragon won, because of the wall situation we got ourselves into, meaning the Knight couldn't get to the Dragon in time. The Cave basically blew its load trying to gum up my progress, and ran out of resources to manage the Dragon. A+B experience, will play as Thief again, only this time not be as gloat-y. EDIT: Just remembered, bumping down the grade, but only because the Knight role went to our resident AP guy, so some turns went on for just far too long. (Then again, any of the Vast roles, when given to an AP person, will really take long, especially on the first game)
oh hey... so i picked up Chicago Express since it was on amazon for $13. It must have been sitting on the warehouse shelf for a looooong time. the rubber band holding the money together was completely disintegrated.
Trains are my thing, and this game is no disappointment. Robber Barroning my way to all the money. good time.
My son (6) got Evolution: The Beginning for Christmas*, and we finally got it to the table today.
Uh, like, wow. That is quite the game. Like, we were playing it with open hands and in a fairly jokey, cooperative mode. But there were absolutely glimmers of how amazingly cutthroat it could be, just below the surface.
Plus, he was laughing his ass off when his predators were chomping down on my long-necked, fertile, fat-tissue-bearing herbivores and doling out free food to his horde of scavengers.
A++, would evolve again.
* He's really into Wild Kratts and "creature powers," so I figured even with him being a bit below the suggested age, we could get it to work.
I got my ass kicked as Unity today in Sidereal Confluence. How am I supposed to sell these wild cubes at a profit? Theyre only "premium" in Unity's broad custermer base, not in the customer's utility in them.
I have gotten both my best score and my worst score with Unity, it really depends on how well you play the table. You need to convince other people that those grey cubes are worth a lot and you need to cleverly time your trade proposals for when they really need x more of whatever color cube and suddenly your greys are the only way they can do that. Sometimes that means trading late in the phase but sometimes also you need to just talk people into giving you your profits because they'll be able to use the grey cubes for ANYTHING!
+1
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Keyflower question, is there any tactical maneuver involving passing, as part of a bluff or ploy?
Sometimes you want to wait for someone to spend more elsewhere before you commit to a tile, so you can pass for that. Round's only over when everyone's passed.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
A year later, we're breaking out Pandemic Legacy Season 2 with the same player group that tackled Season 1 in 2015.
However, this time a different player is pregnant and unfortunately this time we won't be able to do a month-by-month synchronous game as the delivery date is in August. So I guess we'd better wrap this one up by mid-year!
Prologue & January
We cracked out the Prologue and ran through it with basic Haven survivors to play the game without even the safety net of abilities - we wanted the underlying game and how it would fuck us; that, and we wanted to try and tie in the idea that we were unskilled inexperienced folk stepping up into a leadership void. In any case, the prologue did deal us a resounding defeat and we got a sense of what we were dealing with when it promptly handed our asses to us. Season 1's City Zero is the first Season 2 City to earn a plague cube. The symmetry was not lost on us.
On to the hardest, most difficult decisions of Pandemic Legacy: naming things.
We ended up naming the Havens for Cruise Ship lines: The Cunard, the Costa, and the Carribean. The Characters were your usual hodgepodge; one player cranked out the slightly cyberpunk dystopian name of Gregor 10 ("He's the tenth Gregor"), while I pulled out our Season 1 box and took a family name from the Generalist who battled that crisis 71 years ago. A generation-spanning familial torch passed down, maybe.
The cities of the Med were the early flare up risk, with Cairo, Istanbul, and Tripoli all losing several supply crates at regular intervals through the first three Epidemics, while North America went all but untouched for a good while. However we were fortunate in that we quickly were able to manage 5 black city cards (mostly via lucky deck draw) and were in a position to put down a Supply Center in Cairo within the first 10 turns, which helped relieve some pressure... just in time for the hotspots to shift into North America with a new Epidemic.
The midgame stretches us and we make a few decisions afflicted by equivalent amounts of bad luck and poor decision making. However, the cards are building up nicely and although it's taken a long time to draw all the necessary components, we barely manage to keep most of the brushfires contained just enough to gather the exact right number of cards to build Supply Centers in Washington, Recon North America, and Supply Center in Jacksonville in a three-turn span - with literally nothing to spare. It's not a pretty or convincing win, and we cut it very fine by risking total failure to get the cards we need together, but the infection draws go just our way enough that very little permanent damage is done. London and Lagos lose population to become struggling; Jacksonville and Washington recover slightly, while Cairo neither grows or shrinks.
Still the interior of the North American continent is open to us once again, and a win is a win, so we get to retire happy for one night at the end of January; we put down the foundations of 4 more Supply Centers in cities judged to have the most potential for future expansion of facilities. Time will tell if that's truly a useful decision long-term.
All in all, it's still a fun ride whose mysteries I look forward to exploring more closely.
I backed A Duel Betwixt Us on Kickstarter years ago and never collected on it. I never knew what happened until I checked my KS messages and just saw that I never replied when they sent for my shipping info. I think this was before backerkit.
What an idiot.
Well, the other day I saw this message and replied to it just admitting to my total and unforgivable oversight...and apparently they had a few copies left around! So four to five years later I may get the game that I backed and never thought to actually collect!
My son (6) got Evolution: The Beginning for Christmas*, and we finally got it to the table today.
Uh, like, wow. That is quite the game. Like, we were playing it with open hands and in a fairly jokey, cooperative mode. But there were absolutely glimmers of how amazingly cutthroat it could be, just below the surface.
Plus, he was laughing his ass off when his predators were chomping down on my long-necked, fertile, fat-tissue-bearing herbivores and doling out free food to his horde of scavengers.
A++, would evolve again.
* He's really into Wild Kratts and "creature powers," so I figured even with him being a bit below the suggested age, we could get it to work.
*ahem*
Guess who saw the devs at MAGfest. Guess what they were showing off.
So my group played 6 sessions of Pandemic Legacy S2 yesterday and lost 4 of them, getting through May. It's ugly in there and we're having a lot of fun. I don't know what Quinns was on but I assert the game is not too easy at 4 players.
We play S2 with 3 players and I would say it is harder than S1 with 4. You can make S2 super easy by:
playing with the same characters and powering them up. We spread our bonuses to all of our characters in case we needed them later due to death, but apparently that made the game harder for us. Rahdo played 2 players on basically God mode and never lost.
So my group played 6 sessions of Pandemic Legacy S2 yesterday and lost 4 of them, getting through May. It's ugly in there and we're having a lot of fun. I don't know what Quinns was on but I assert the game is not too easy at 4 players.
From seeing their review, it seemed like they were playing with just 2 players, which would have made it easier than most groups who are playing with more.
So I got to play Charterstone this past weekend. was 5 people total in the game, and we had a good bit of fun. A few of the rules are somewhat unclearly explained, but veterans typically can figure out the blank stops. My group played two games, but i think the third game will be more interesting as the first two have you retaining resources, then suddenly you are limited to what carries over...so people who made somewhat poor choices during the initial phase are now on even ground with the people who happen to make good decisions (By accident or otherwise).
I was expecting the game to be a bit simple, but unlike pandemic or risk where something usually changes inbetween games, we are unlocking things all the time, from rules, to new available objectives, to new game features and buildings, and its turning out to be quite busy in terms of how you could plan your strategy. The constant unlocking is also making the game more interesting. It gives you glimpses of what the game will eventually be like when it gets more populated.
The Game can play up to 6, and if you have a gap in players, it even eventually tells you how to play the missing players in an 'a.i.' manner so its not just a dead spot on the board.
Might be a bit early to say for sure, but so far, I think I recommend it to people who like Legacy games.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
0
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
So I got to play Charterstone this past weekend. was 5 people total in the game, and we had a good bit of fun. A few of the rules are somewhat unclearly explained, but veterans typically can figure out the blank stops. My group played two games, but i think the third game will be more interesting as the first two have you retaining resources, then suddenly you are limited to what carries over...so people who made somewhat poor choices during the initial phase are now on even ground with the people who happen to make good decisions (By accident or otherwise).
I was expecting the game to be a bit simple, but unlike pandemic or risk where something usually changes inbetween games, we are unlocking things all the time, from rules, to new available objectives, to new game features and buildings, and its turning out to be quite busy in terms of how you could plan your strategy. The constant unlocking is also making the game more interesting. It gives you glimpses of what the game will eventually be like when it gets more populated.
The Game can play up to 6, and if you have a gap in players, it even eventually tells you how to play the missing players in an 'a.i.' manner so its not just a dead spot on the board.
Might be a bit early to say for sure, but so far, I think I recommend it to people who like Legacy games.
What about people who don't play worker placement games regularly? I'm wondering if it might be a solid, if unusual, way to on-board people to those.
So I got to play Charterstone this past weekend. was 5 people total in the game, and we had a good bit of fun. A few of the rules are somewhat unclearly explained, but veterans typically can figure out the blank stops. My group played two games, but i think the third game will be more interesting as the first two have you retaining resources, then suddenly you are limited to what carries over...so people who made somewhat poor choices during the initial phase are now on even ground with the people who happen to make good decisions (By accident or otherwise).
I was expecting the game to be a bit simple, but unlike pandemic or risk where something usually changes inbetween games, we are unlocking things all the time, from rules, to new available objectives, to new game features and buildings, and its turning out to be quite busy in terms of how you could plan your strategy. The constant unlocking is also making the game more interesting. It gives you glimpses of what the game will eventually be like when it gets more populated.
The Game can play up to 6, and if you have a gap in players, it even eventually tells you how to play the missing players in an 'a.i.' manner so its not just a dead spot on the board.
Might be a bit early to say for sure, but so far, I think I recommend it to people who like Legacy games.
What about people who don't play worker placement games regularly? I'm wondering if it might be a solid, if unusual, way to on-board people to those.
I'm only 2 rounds in, but I think I'd not recommend it as a first worker-placement game. The legacy bits are really fun but they also mean that both the workers and the placement are changing really quickly and it might be super confusing to someone who hasn't done some Agricola or what have you.
I dunno, the actions you have to start are fairly limited, and each charter is going to be focused around creating/using a single resource, at least until cards start going into the general buy pool. Things are only getting a bit more varied for us around game 5, and I figure by that point people have probably got the hang of it.
So I got to play Charterstone this past weekend. was 5 people total in the game, and we had a good bit of fun. A few of the rules are somewhat unclearly explained, but veterans typically can figure out the blank stops. My group played two games, but i think the third game will be more interesting as the first two have you retaining resources, then suddenly you are limited to what carries over...so people who made somewhat poor choices during the initial phase are now on even ground with the people who happen to make good decisions (By accident or otherwise).
I was expecting the game to be a bit simple, but unlike pandemic or risk where something usually changes inbetween games, we are unlocking things all the time, from rules, to new available objectives, to new game features and buildings, and its turning out to be quite busy in terms of how you could plan your strategy. The constant unlocking is also making the game more interesting. It gives you glimpses of what the game will eventually be like when it gets more populated.
The Game can play up to 6, and if you have a gap in players, it even eventually tells you how to play the missing players in an 'a.i.' manner so its not just a dead spot on the board.
Might be a bit early to say for sure, but so far, I think I recommend it to people who like Legacy games.
What about people who don't play worker placement games regularly? I'm wondering if it might be a solid, if unusual, way to on-board people to those.
Yeah i have to agree with Auralynx, I thought at first it might be good for a first timer as well, but the first game felt like it was kinda on the slow side with all the unlocks happening, and while it was kinda exciting for me, I think a newbie might have found it slow and boring. The second game went much faster than the first however.
I disagree, I think Charterstone is a really good game to onboard someone into worker placement, as long as the skill levels between players aren't too disparate. The rules definitely escalate quickly beyond the first game, but it's never too crazy, and ultimately it's still a lot less complicated than anything remotely approaching Agricola. It's also just all fairly lighthearted and fun, and the campaign trappings are enough to carry people are perhaps less invested in the strategic Euro side of the game.
Posts
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
The cave basically plays as the great equaliser. To win, they want the game to go long so they can place all the cave cards and then begin collapsing the cave (winning once they collapse 5(?) crystal tiles). Thus if any one player starts getting too far ahead, they need to try and slow their progress. They can do this in a whole bunch of ways, placing treasure near losing players. Playing ambush tiles where the knight is going if the goblins are behind, or treasure if the knight is behind. They even have an expensive power that directly penalises a player (-grit for knight, etc).
I can't say I've played the thief myself, but they do play a very different role from the other character players. Each of the dragon, knight and goblin interact with each other in a circular fashion, whereas the thief is all out on his own with everyone wanting to attack him. All the thief has to do is get treasure: either dragon gems, normal treasure or (I think) pick-pocketing the knight, and take it back to the entrance. Unfortunately for him, all other players receive a large bonus if they take him down, so he has to try and sneak about and not get caught; rather like a thief!
The first time we played with the thief, the cave didn't really know their objective so let them get a lot of treasure very quickly and thus power up far quicker than the other players. Ended up with a somewhat one-sided game, so make sure everyone is aware of everyone's goals in the game.
It might take a game or two to figure things out, but it's really great. A definite masterclass in asymmetric balance!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
As a massive Hellboy fan and quite keen on a lot of Mantic’s stuff I expect to go silly on the Kickstarter for this one.
My first tip would be to pretend the Thief doesn't exist unless you actually have 5 players. Bursar's tip above is excellent as well.
I took a quick shelfie to demonstrate why this excites me so.
Dungeon saga has just completely burned me on backing any of their stuff
All that's theory craft, I haven't actually played as them yet.
+1ing the thief notion here featured. The thief was actually a kickstarter bonus, with the original base pitch only having the other four characters. Thus the game is really balanced around the core four with any removal of one of those changing the rules and the way the game plays significantly and IMO making for a less fun game.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Que?
Sweet!
Also, one guy higly intrigued by the game dove right into the Im'Dril, went into debt and go his score in the fifties. His enthusiasm was on par with my first game with the devs as I was making Century comparisons.
Nice. Our winning scores tied at 49.5 (they were playing the K... Colony guys and the eni et space whale bankers), I came in after them with mid 40s (faderan), everyone else went down from there. I keep looking to get it back to the table but it hasn't happened thus far. I loved it, but I'm not sure anyone else was as enthused. Definitely not a game for all tastes.
Forget it, Ah_Pook. It's Chinatown.
100% Grade A Certified Quality Forum Post™
The thing to remember about playing the thief, is that everyone looks at you like the looney tunes always looked at each other on a desert island - like a big tasty morsel, full of experience points and treasure. You need to avoid the other players as much as you can, because anyone who manages to take you out gains a big boost. The cave might also try to keep the balance by keeping you away from the other players (or pushing you together if someone else is in the lead, possibly)
Keyflower was a great success! The mechanics were understood by my "students" easily enough (including some "damn that's a clever mechanic" moments), but I handily won because the other person gunning for the win undervalued the green keyples, which only a couple players (me included) have access to. That, and no one contested me going first into Winter, which allowed me to dominate bidding with my army of yellow keyples. A+ experience for all, will play again.
Since the Vast owner didn't know how to play the Thief (since jongetsgames's video didn't have it), it fell upon me to be the Thief. We got Tile revealing wrong (thinking that the orientation to keep a route to the entrance open was only for the Knight), but I managed to get to the lead with four treasures (one getting yoinked from the Knight who was hanging out real close to the entrance as I respawned).... so as free-for-all convention goes, that meant everyone just started aiming for me. By the end, the Dragon won, because of the wall situation we got ourselves into, meaning the Knight couldn't get to the Dragon in time. The Cave basically blew its load trying to gum up my progress, and ran out of resources to manage the Dragon. A+B experience, will play as Thief again, only this time not be as gloat-y. EDIT: Just remembered, bumping down the grade, but only because the Knight role went to our resident AP guy, so some turns went on for just far too long. (Then again, any of the Vast roles, when given to an AP person, will really take long, especially on the first game)
Trains are my thing, and this game is no disappointment. Robber Barroning my way to all the money. good time.
Uh, like, wow. That is quite the game. Like, we were playing it with open hands and in a fairly jokey, cooperative mode. But there were absolutely glimmers of how amazingly cutthroat it could be, just below the surface.
Plus, he was laughing his ass off when his predators were chomping down on my long-necked, fertile, fat-tissue-bearing herbivores and doling out free food to his horde of scavengers.
A++, would evolve again.
* He's really into Wild Kratts and "creature powers," so I figured even with him being a bit below the suggested age, we could get it to work.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I have gotten both my best score and my worst score with Unity, it really depends on how well you play the table. You need to convince other people that those grey cubes are worth a lot and you need to cleverly time your trade proposals for when they really need x more of whatever color cube and suddenly your greys are the only way they can do that. Sometimes that means trading late in the phase but sometimes also you need to just talk people into giving you your profits because they'll be able to use the grey cubes for ANYTHING!
However, this time a different player is pregnant and unfortunately this time we won't be able to do a month-by-month synchronous game as the delivery date is in August. So I guess we'd better wrap this one up by mid-year!
Prologue & January
On to the hardest, most difficult decisions of Pandemic Legacy: naming things.
We ended up naming the Havens for Cruise Ship lines: The Cunard, the Costa, and the Carribean. The Characters were your usual hodgepodge; one player cranked out the slightly cyberpunk dystopian name of Gregor 10 ("He's the tenth Gregor"), while I pulled out our Season 1 box and took a family name from the Generalist who battled that crisis 71 years ago. A generation-spanning familial torch passed down, maybe.
The cities of the Med were the early flare up risk, with Cairo, Istanbul, and Tripoli all losing several supply crates at regular intervals through the first three Epidemics, while North America went all but untouched for a good while. However we were fortunate in that we quickly were able to manage 5 black city cards (mostly via lucky deck draw) and were in a position to put down a Supply Center in Cairo within the first 10 turns, which helped relieve some pressure... just in time for the hotspots to shift into North America with a new Epidemic.
The midgame stretches us and we make a few decisions afflicted by equivalent amounts of bad luck and poor decision making. However, the cards are building up nicely and although it's taken a long time to draw all the necessary components, we barely manage to keep most of the brushfires contained just enough to gather the exact right number of cards to build Supply Centers in Washington, Recon North America, and Supply Center in Jacksonville in a three-turn span - with literally nothing to spare. It's not a pretty or convincing win, and we cut it very fine by risking total failure to get the cards we need together, but the infection draws go just our way enough that very little permanent damage is done. London and Lagos lose population to become struggling; Jacksonville and Washington recover slightly, while Cairo neither grows or shrinks.
Still the interior of the North American continent is open to us once again, and a win is a win, so we get to retire happy for one night at the end of January; we put down the foundations of 4 more Supply Centers in cities judged to have the most potential for future expansion of facilities. Time will tell if that's truly a useful decision long-term.
All in all, it's still a fun ride whose mysteries I look forward to exploring more closely.
What an idiot.
Well, the other day I saw this message and replied to it just admitting to my total and unforgivable oversight...and apparently they had a few copies left around! So four to five years later I may get the game that I backed and never thought to actually collect!
*ahem*
Guess who saw the devs at MAGfest. Guess what they were showing off.
From seeing their review, it seemed like they were playing with just 2 players, which would have made it easier than most groups who are playing with more.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I was expecting the game to be a bit simple, but unlike pandemic or risk where something usually changes inbetween games, we are unlocking things all the time, from rules, to new available objectives, to new game features and buildings, and its turning out to be quite busy in terms of how you could plan your strategy. The constant unlocking is also making the game more interesting. It gives you glimpses of what the game will eventually be like when it gets more populated.
The Game can play up to 6, and if you have a gap in players, it even eventually tells you how to play the missing players in an 'a.i.' manner so its not just a dead spot on the board.
Might be a bit early to say for sure, but so far, I think I recommend it to people who like Legacy games.
What about people who don't play worker placement games regularly? I'm wondering if it might be a solid, if unusual, way to on-board people to those.
I'm only 2 rounds in, but I think I'd not recommend it as a first worker-placement game. The legacy bits are really fun but they also mean that both the workers and the placement are changing really quickly and it might be super confusing to someone who hasn't done some Agricola or what have you.
Yeah i have to agree with Auralynx, I thought at first it might be good for a first timer as well, but the first game felt like it was kinda on the slow side with all the unlocks happening, and while it was kinda exciting for me, I think a newbie might have found it slow and boring. The second game went much faster than the first however.
Passing is huge. Let's you see if your oppponents are going to outbid you on your key bids before you commit elsewhere, etc.
The other two were Dasani and Farmville, since we know what the grim future looks like--corporate branding.