Ah, I can see that being a problem. I didn’t play enough to notice that. You said “at launch…” has it been fixed.
No idea squire, from the scores resulting that I saw, there were fairly large differences irrecoverable by actual play, and I heard about a bidding system and handicaps for certain civs but I haven’t kept up with it. After Scythe was released and it took years for certain combinations to be banned (not tweaked), when it was noted after weeks of play, I lost interest. There’s something awry in their playtesting but financial success papers over it.
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Looks like they’re actively working on a digital version with a plan to launch an alpha test soon
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Finally got Hannibal to the table again for the first time since 2019, and even if the first two hours were me being fisted by Hannibal, it was still a delight. I didn’t win a single battle (card advantage with battle cards is a huge factor) for hours, slowly leaked strength, and only managed to respond through superior stewardship and careful management. Carthage had some rough luck losing an army on the sea, but their land escapades were successful and they ended up deep in Italy, where the eventual arrival of Scipio Africanus (Afric-ANUS) caused an abrupt reversal of fortunes, the destruction of several Carthaginian armies, and Hannibal being chased out of Italy with the crumbling remnants of a once-mighty force. A brief invasion of Africa was a nice diversion, and the slow erosion of Carthaginian control of Hispania sealed the deal. In some respects I’ve forgotten some of the fundamentals, while retaining just enough knowledge of the big brain plays to be dangerous.
The battles were one-sided for two hours, then were one-sided the other way for the next two, which was really fortunate for me as my opponent kept winning with Probe battle cards (-2 DRM on the damage roll) and I kept winning with Double Envelopment (+2 DRM), which made for some extremely bloody retreats. We both had a blast, thankfully.
The modular board is a fucking nightmare, however, and it’s jigsaw-style connections do not survive being knocked, we discovered, three times. Absolute horror show when the board is several inches bigger than the table and overhangs on both sides. Otherwise, I’m not envious of the new edition. A great game.
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I still have the Valley edition and see little need to change it. But it is a great game and has truly become a classic.
Now, to test the new Successors…
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I know they’ve issued civilization fixes to help balance the game. My first game was without them. I don’t know what BGA has (I’ve played a couple of games there, so not sure if the changes are there)
That will be awesome.
I felt like it was a really solid system that, yea suffered from civ imbalance, but a good game.
Not sure why they shipped with such variance in civs…
Do we have any experienced Arkwright players here? One of my group came back from the National meet up with a strategy that breaks most of the systems in the game. It involves loans. I wondered if anyone else had encountered this and found a way round this meta, as the only way to remain competitive is to do the same strategy. If that’s the case, Arkwright is probably over for me, which is a shame because it’s systems work quite well together otherwise
Sucked back in to Veilwraith after sleeving the absolution expansion and realizing I get to carry over all my progress from the first 5 vignettes through the next 15 vignettes in the campaign that came with the expansion. I thought I had to restart from scratch every 5.
I really don’t think anything else even stands a chance at topping this for my GOTY.
So Chip Theory Games just earned a fan for life.
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As long as the game isn’t a load of old shit anyway!
Even if I don’t like it, that’s an incredibly generous offer for how much the base game and shipping is.
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Just played my first game of Dinosaur Island with my wife and 8yo. I quite like the game. It is a table hog and because of the multiple boards it looks way more complicated than it actually is. Having 4 distinct phases made it easier to learn and to teach, though it took a few rounds to see how each of the four phases impacted the other. We all basically started the game with very little late-game strategy, though my son was able to buy a T-Rex recipe as his first action and immediately planned out how he would get one into his park. We played the short game, which was fine for learning but which also ended the game too abruptly. I’ll jump straight to the long game next time.
This was also the first game I think we’ve ever played where my son spent time after the game ended looking through all the Unplayed cards and tiles, which I loved to see.
The game took a while to set up and I don’t k ow that it would replace something like Manhattan Project in my collection, but it is a great mid-weight worker placement.
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The juxtaposition of the size of the two games I got in the mail today.
Looking forward to trying both out this week/end.
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Guess which one of those will actually fit on a Kallax shelf.
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I can’t remember if I posted last week’s Top 300 post, but since I have a new one from yesterday, I’ll add that one as well.
Any thoughts on these games?
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Can report in that Too Many Bones is indeed not a dud, and after seeing the component quality in the box I can completely understand where that price tag is going, and it’s definitely not just lining Chip Theory’s pockets.
Ample storage trays and containers for the multitude of dice and high quality poker chip baddies, some high quality neoprene mats that the dice all slot into perfectly, and some of the best quality cards I’ve ever seen.
Gameplay I thought would be super daunting after reading through the first bit of the booklet, then they have you setup a game and walk you through most of your first couple events and first fight and it all just clicked for me. I’ll definitely be picking up more for this.
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Doom Machine, also a great little small box game. Game Crafter quality components but the simple ruleset and interactions between the mechanics and cascading complications of your doom machine nemesis really shine.
If you like games like Sagrada or One Deck Dungeon, this is probably for you.
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Also Nathan Meunier has a gloriously smooth tutorial voice.
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AlieN Frontiers is an odd one. I remember it being so super heavy hyped, I got the iOS app and the game was actually pretty solid. Early days of iOS board gaming it was huge!
But then it disappeared.
I found the pacing a little strange, and tended to completely skip the planet card mechanism.
I have fond memories though.
What happened? Get passed by on the hype train?